


In the Shadow of the Bull

by captain_iodine (orphan_account)



Series: In the Shadow of the Bull [1]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Caesar's Legion, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, Implied Sexual Content, Legion!Maxson, Universe Alteration
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2017-03-31
Packaged: 2018-07-19 15:52:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 31
Words: 52,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7367899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/captain_iodine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four years before the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, a small settlement under the protection of the Brotherhood of Steel is razed to the ground. Its inhabitants are either enslaved or killed by the raiding legionaries. </p><p>Amongst those taken is a young boy by the name of Arthur Maxson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> What if Maxson had never been sent to train in the East? What if the Legion had captured him instead?
> 
> Now with a shiny [cover](http://bugsieplusone.tumblr.com/post/157416470437/gift-for-princetybalt-for-their-fonvfo4), as designed by [Buggirl](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Buggirl/works).

_Victoribus Spolia._ To the victor go the spoils.

Those were the first words the boy heard from the invader while he hid beneath the floorboards of the home he shared with his mother. His mother, who brandished a knife at the attacker. His mother, who was bleeding from a wound on the side of her head and yet refused to go down. Even as she had ushered her son into the hiding spot, she had not allowed any fear to show but the boy had known it was there. She was brave — stubborn and strong — but they both knew that resisting Caesar’s Legion was futile.

The boy was nine years old. In another year or so he might have begun his training as a squire; in another year he would have fought at her side, and perhaps between them they might have fended off the invader in his strange attire, a tunic and patchwork armor with red symbols daubed across it.

His mother had fought valiantly at first, even though the invader was better armed. She would have overpowered him, too, had he not caught her unawares and shoved her aside, sending her crashing into the kitchen table. It seemed strange to the boy to think that they had shared a meal at that table only hours before, that they had argued when she had caught him carving a stick figure into the solid oak.

She was starting to waver, even the boy could see as much from his hiding spot. He couldn’t watch as the attacker struck out at her again, could only cover his eyes and listen to the feeble clash of her knife against his machete. He heard the clatter of metal hitting the floor above his head and knew without needing to look that it was her knife, that she had faltered, that she had failed.

The fight was over.

The man dragged her away, deflecting her pitiful attempts to stop him. Once they had crossed the threshold onto the street, the boy lifted the boards above his head and climbed out. His mother had told him to stay hidden, but he couldn't let them take her away.

He followed in the shadows, trying his best to ignore the sounds of screaming and crying around him. The air was thick with smoke, and another smell — sweeter, and yet more sickly. He would come to recognize it in later years as the stench of burning flesh.

The invaders were ruthless and efficient. What they didn't plan to take with them, they burned. There would be no salvaging this place when the Brotherhood of Steel arrived.

The boy wondered what had happened to the members of the Brotherhood stationed around town: kind-hearted Knight Milner, who had shown him how to make a bow out of branches and twine; Scribe Tory, who taught the children at the school.

He got his answer when he saw the crosses, cast in silhouette as the fire raged behind them — the soldiers had been crucified. Some were already dead from their injuries, while others suffered still, the sound of their moans carried by the wind.

Still he followed, his eyes never leaving his mother for long. At some point she had stopped struggling against her attacker, all the fight gone out of her. Even in the flickering light of the flames he could see the glint of blood on her temple.

‘I found another, Decanus,’ the invader said, throwing the woman down at the feet of his commander.

The man he had referred to as Decanus glanced the woman over. With all the calm and composure of someone for whom war was a fact of life, he stepped forward and grabbed her by the hair, yanking her head back to take a look at her.

‘She's bleeding,’ he remarked coldly.

‘She hit her head in the struggle. She fought well.’

The decanus spent a long time studying the woman, twisting her head this way and that, before letting go of her hair so he could grip her by the arms and pull her to her feet. She all but crumpled when he let go, too weak to stand.

He tutted impatiently.

‘She's damaged,’ he said. ‘Useless to us. Kill her and move along.’

It was then that the boy chose to jump from the shadows, roaring fiercely as he stormed towards the men with every intention of killing them with his teeth and nails if he had to. He landed a kick on the shin of the legionary with painted armor before turning to punch the other.

The decanus allowed the boy to land a volley of futile blows on his stomach, padded as it was with leather.

‘Leave her alone!’ the boy screamed. ‘I'll kill you!’

The decanus smirked. Perhaps the woman had indeed been full of spirit before her injury dampened her enthusiasm, but the boy had suffered no such hindrance. He had seen the same rage before, in others and in himself as a boy. Rage was good — it could be honed and shaped into something deadly.

‘Is that so, boy?’ he challenged.

With barely any effort at all, he snatched at the boy's wrist and twisted it, almost to breaking point. He could see the pain in the child's eyes, yet he never cried out. Good.

‘He'll go with the others,’ he declared, releasing his grip. ‘Make sure that nothing happens to damage him along the way.’

The legionary did as he was ordered, picking the boy up and throwing him over his shoulder as though he weighed nothing at all. From his vantage point the boy could see everything as he was led away — the glint of the blade, the cold horror in his mother's eyes.

‘Look away, Arthur,’ she said. He knew she was trying to sound brave for his sake. ‘Just look away.’

This time, he could not.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Re-readers may notice this chapter is a little different from its first incarnation. I felt that the way events played out the first time around was lazy and sloppy writing, and I've been considering changing it for a while now. Hopefully this version serves the story better.
> 
> Apologies to anyone who found it uncomfortable to read - I think what was putting me off editing it was the fact that I found it uncomfortable to revisit, too, so who the hell knows what possessed me to include it in the first place.


	2. I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the years following Caesar's death after the Legion's victory at Hoover Dam, another leader rose through the ranks to take his place — a charismatic young man who chose to style himself Aurelius. 
> 
> Under the rule of the new Caesar, the Legion thrives; old laws of prohibition and purity became more lenient or were abandoned altogether, and for the first time in over thirty years the Legion has access to modern medicine, at the behest of Aurelius's personal healer. 
> 
> The Legion's destructive ways are far from over, however, and they have set their sights on expanding.
> 
> At a camp in the south of the region formerly known as Colorado, a Legion encampment awaits orders to march on their enemies in the north.

_June 2289 — Legion encampment — somewhere in the former state of Colorado_

Vultures circle overhead as the man known as Decanus Regulus watches the soldiers in his contubernium train. He clasps his hands behind his back as he paces around the group, critical of any and every mistake. 

The grunts of exertion and the clash of blade against blade is like music to his ears — a familiar chorus that promises war and glory. 

One of his legionaries missteps as he parries his sparring partner's strike; what should have been deflected instead pierces him through the abdomen. 

The rhythm falters. 

Irritated, the decanus claps his hands together twice to signal for his men to focus and continue. In spite of his injury, the wounded legionary wins his bout. It is only then that he is permitted to see the healer. 

The heat has them all tense, which ultimately causes more mistakes. The decanus is eager for orders that will finally break up the monotony. 

He doesn't get his wish, but the arrival of the slavers is enough to boost morale somewhat. They're offering a girl still pretty enough in spite of her malnourishment, and an old man claims to have knowledge of healing, which makes him invaluable. 

For the beast of a man with angry brown eyes the Legion pays double; he's too old to be reconditioned so he'll never fight for them, but he's as strong as a bear. 

They name him the Ox.

When a handful of men volunteer to fight him bare handed, the Ox defeats them all. It's only once he's up against two of them with blades that he falls, but Nonus the slave master puts an end to it before any real harm can be done. The Ox seems too valuable to waste, even as a capture. 

They keep him in his collar long after the others from his group have had theirs removed. When it becomes apparent that his talents are wasted toiling through menial labor, they assign him to the arena. 

It pleases the decanus to watch his men go up against the Ox. He knows he has trained them well when they win almost every fight — most of the legionaries in the other contubernia cocky enough to face off against the Ox submit soon after stepping into the arena with him. 

It starts to trouble him, however. With time, the Ox seems to be winning more often. It should be the legionaries who improve, not him. 

The decanus mulls it over as he returns to his modest tent, removing the feather-adorned helmet from his head as he does so. 

Livia is waiting on his bed when he enters, undressed and ready for him. Her long, strawberry blonde hair hangs loose, draped artfully about her pale form. 

He's too distracted to play with her, although as he studies the papers littered across his desk, she wins him over by tiptoeing up to him and slipping a hand deftly between her legs before letting him taste her from her fingers. 

Later when he makes her climax, she moans _Arthur_ in his ear and he pulls away, striking her hard across her face. 

‘How many times do I have to tell you not to say that name?’ he spits. 

She merely pouts as she watches him dress, gingerly touching the newly-forming bruise on her cheekbone. She's used to his temper by now; most of the time she only manages to wind him up enough for him to lash out when she's bored and he won't pay her any attention. 

Once she has slipped into a robe of silk worth seven times as much as the Legion paid for her, she steps outside to have the girl bring some hot water so Livia can bathe him. 

‘And some wine,’ she says haltingly. It's hard not to remember an earlier time when the Legion had forbidden alcohol. Since the death of the first Caesar, a lot has changed. 

When the girl returns, Livia beckons for her to fill the small tub in the corner of the room and tends to the task of removing her master's clothes. 

It's on rare occasions that she truly says his birth name by mistake; he has been Regulus to everyone in the Legion for over a decade, long before they ever met, but since he confided his birth name to her one night months earlier it has been hard to get it out of her head. Regulus is the ambitious decanus, primed to someday lead a centuria of his own. Arthur, meanwhile, is the man who kisses her forehead before he leaves each morning; the man who once made sure she would be his and his alone. 

As soon as she has the rest of his clothes pooled at his feet on the floor, she presses close to him. 

‘I can have the girl stay, if you like,’ she says. 

She takes his silence for agreement; with a snap of her fingers, the girl begins to disrobe. She's a little boyish for Livia’s tastes, too narrow in the hips and too broad in the shoulders, but she knows what Arthur likes. 

‘How old is she, Livia?’ he asks. 

She acts coy, slipping away to pour three glasses of wine, one for each of them. 

‘Eighteen,’ she says sweetly. 

‘Damnit, Livia.’

He strides forward and grabs the girl by the wrist, stopping her in the middle of undressing.

‘Go back to Nonus,’ he commands, his voice weary. ‘Tell him he's not to send you again.’

The girl scurries away, barely remembering to pick up the empty water pail as she goes. With a rustling sound as she slips through the flap out of the tent, she's gone. 

‘Nonus won't be happy,’ Livia says. 

‘Enough, woman.’

He approaches the table and picks up one of the drinks, downing it. 

‘What were you thinking?’ he snaps as he sets his cup down with a thud. ‘She's barely more than a child.’

‘The others wouldn't say no…’

She's not prepared when he picks up the bottle of wine and hurls it across the room, sending it smashing against the canvas wall and staining it a vivid red. 

‘I said _enough_.’

She knows she has pushed him too far for once. She's treading in dangerous territory. 

‘I'm sorry,’ she says. She makes a convincing portrait of contrition, with her delicate hands clasped together in front of her. ‘You just seemed so tense. I wanted to help you relax.’

His face softens slightly. Just as Livia knows how to push his buttons, she knows how to soothe him, too. 

‘I need to think,’ he says, with a sigh. ‘Alone.’

Livia knows better than to be offended, but that doesn't mean she can't be disappointed. She starts to pout again but one icy glance from his blue eyes stops her. 

‘What about your bath?’ she asks, gesturing toward the tub. 

Arthur's shoulders dip slightly, as if he's just remembered what he would be rewarded with if he were to allow her to stay. Nevertheless, he waves a hand dismissively. 

‘Go,’ he says firmly. 

She waits until he has climbed into the bath on his own, the tub so small he has to sit with his knees pulled up to his chest, before she turns to leave, but then he stops her one last time. 

‘Send for Varius.’

_Oh. Of course._

She does her best to keep the bitterness from her voice as she responds to him as sweetly as she can. 

‘I'll fetch another bottle of wine for you as well.’

She shouldn't be surprised, really. Varius seems to spend more time with Arthur these days than she does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 27/11/16 to modify Arthur and Livia's exchange about the girl. 
> 
> I've taken some liberties with how the Legion turned out following Caesar's death. I always found it a little strange to see how puritanical the Legion was compared to their classical namesakes, and while a lot of it is explained away in canon as Caesar believing vice to be the source of failure, I have a hard time believing that this philosophy would endure in someone else's leadership. 
> 
> I feel like the Legion would still appear very terrifying and alien to outsiders, but in private they would be a little more lax. Kind of like a don't ask, don't tell of drinking and sex. 
> 
> Chems are still a huge no-go, as in you will be kicked out or worse if you are caught. The only people with access to proper medicine are the most trusted of healers; anyone else has to grind up broc flower and xander root just like back in the good old days. 
> 
> Prostitution is still illegal, as is gambling, but they go on among the Legion regardless, albeit hidden from view. Most high ranking members of the Legion get around the restriction on prostitution by buying a girl — or boy! — to keep as a personal companion. Livia serves such a role for Maxson. 
> 
> All in all, I wanted to craft a world that was a little more colourful than the one presented in _New Vegas_ ; it's not hard to believe that at a time of war a civilisation such as the Legion would be so ascetic, but given the change in leadership and the rapid expansion of the Legion following their win at Hoover Dam, it would be hard to maintain such a strict policy of purity and so on over such a large empire. 
> 
> Lastly, Livia is not based on anyone in particular, although she's named for Xena's daughter in the show of the same name.


	3. II

_August 2289 — Legion encampment_

Livia dozes atop the furs and blankets that serve as Arthur’s bed, her slender arm draped across her face. The bruise is long gone from her lovely porcelain skin; hours after lashing out he had ushered her back into his tent and pressed gentle kisses across her marred cheek, as if to soothe the injury away.

The heat is too much for either of them so she spends most of her days in the shade now. Arthur knows he must venture back out into the sun once more, however; in spite of the respect he has earned for his tenacity in battle, he has no special privileges amongst the other decani. It’s unwise to keep flouting his position.

The desk running alongside one edge of the room is still littered with empty wine cups from the night before, several playing cards still laid out on top of the documents and maps spread across the surface. Last night he had the rare pleasure of having Varius and Livia in the same room as one another without there being any arguing. They had played hands of Caravan and poker, and by the end of it all Livia walked away with the largest pot.

Arthur ushered Varius out early in the morning, before the sun had even fully risen. His friend is part of another contubernium under a stout, irritable decanus by the name of Plenus. The last time Varius slept through a hangover in Arthur’s tent, Plenus went on the warpath. It was an experience that didn’t bear repeating.

Distractedly, Arthur tidies away the playing cards. When he checks Varius’s last hand from before he folded, he discovers his friend had been letting Livia win. Perhaps it’s a sign that he’s finally trying to make nice.

He clears away the bulk of the clutter as best he can without waking Livia up and grudgingly dons his armor. The heavy leather does little to cool him down in such unforgiving weather.

On the way out he traces his fingertips up the impossibly soft expanse of Livia’s thigh. She stirs slightly but doesn't wake. 

At the training yard, he sees the willingness in his own men, brought to the fore by the legionary he posted to supervise them in his absence. There are times, however, when they appear sluggish and listless. Maneuvers that would once have been seamless and fluid are now performed as if by dull routine.

They have been at the encampment since spring.

Idly, he strolls past some of the other men in the training yard and finds them in a similar state. It seems his suspicions are correct; the legionaries, both his own and those under the other decani, are losing their focus.

Arthur’s aimless path takes him through the encampment, past slaves and captures, past traders peddling their wares. By the time he gets to the arena, he doesn’t even realize where his feet have been taking him.

There are no fights there today, staged or otherwise, but the Ox sits inside the cage looking sullen. His face is bruised and swollen, his shoulders bearing the livid red marks left by a whip.

Arthur wonders what the Ox did to earn such a punishment; he wonders why he hasn’t been deemed too hot-headed, too dangerous, and simply been killed already.

‘Ave, Decanus.’

He turns; a boy no taller than his ribs stands before him, knuckles covered in bruises from brutal training. He gestures for the boy to continue.

‘Centurion Tullius wishes to speak with you,’ he says.

His voice is devoid of the childish inflection that other boys his age might share having grown up beyond the reach of the Legion. Arthur knows that he will soon progress from a prospect to a recruit legionary; when that happens he will no longer be a boy, but a man.

‘Very well,’ he says. ‘True to Caesar.’

‘True to Caesar,’ the boy repeats tonelessly, before scurrying away.

The centurion’s tent is by far the largest of any of the quarters in camp, however it doubles as something of a command center for the encampment. The guards standing outside salute him as he approaches and he returns the gesture as they allow him inside. Beyond the tent flap, Tullius has gathered the other decani.

‘Ave,’ Arthur says to signal his arrival. The greeting is echoed around the small group.

‘We have received word from Legate Lanius,’ Tullius announces. ‘We are to maintain our position for the time being.’

Arthur feels a surge of irritation go through him. He knows that the order came from Caesar originally, through the Legate. He can’t help but wonder what has prompted their ruler to move so cautiously. When he was promoted to decanus, Tullius had promised him that they would march against the enemy before the summer. How is he to prove himself from the confines of a camp while the enemy reinforces their borders to the north?

‘What of the Scorched Pines Centuria?’ he asks. The last he heard of them they had been moving to flank from the north.

Tullius gestures to the large vellum map laid out on the round table in the center of the room. It’s similar to the one in Arthur’s tent, but on a much larger scale and with greater detail. The pine tree sigil of the other centuria is not where expected, but further to the east.

‘They were cut off by tribals,’ Tullius states. ‘They’ll reroute further south.’

Another pang of irritation — the Scorched Pines are supposed to be an elite unit, so named for a massacre they were responsible for several years earlier. He keeps his thoughts to himself, however, and studies the rest of the map. By chance, he notices that the bear sigil of the New California Republic has regained a little bit of ground that it had previously lost. There is also a new sigil that he doesn’t recognize, approaching from the southeast.

‘Until we have further orders, we are to continue training as before.’ It dawns on Arthur that Tullius is a little distracted, addressing the room rather than the decani themselves. ‘I want it to be clear that we will accept only total discipline, obedience and perfection. Any man offering less than that will no longer be fit for our ranks.’

It brings to mind the sight that greeted Arthur at the training yard — once disciplined, honed warriors having wilted in the face of stagnation. They have become complacent.

Tullius dismisses them after assuring them that they will each be subject to the same exacting expectations as their men, but he stops Arthur before he can leave.

‘Tell me, Regulus,’ he says, once they are alone. ‘Have you seen the Ox fight?’

Arthur nods. He’s not sure where the centurion is going with this train of thought.

‘What did you think?’ Tullius asks.

Silent awhile, Arthur thinks properly on the Ox’s technique for the first time. Where he seemed to rely on brute strength at first, after repeated bouts with legionaries he has started to pick up some of their form. Adequately armed, he would be a credible threat.

‘He lacks finesse,’ he states, ‘though not discipline. I had thought him a tribal when he first arrived, but now I’m not so sure. A former soldier perhaps, or a mercenary? He might have made a skilled legionary, if it were possible to tame him.’

Tullius seems distracted once more, gazing out over the battlefield portrayed on the map before him. He nods slowly after a moment, however, as if Arthur’s words confirmed what he had already thought. Whatever his reason for bringing up the subject, he moves swiftly on.

‘There's a heavily fortified settlement to the west,’’ he says, all professionalism once more. ‘It may present a tactical advantage to have it under our control. If you were to infiltrate it, who would you bring?’

Arthur barely has to think.

‘Plenus’s contubernium, sir. They seem as eager as my men are to gain new ground.’

Tullius grunts thoughtfully.

Arthur leaves the command tent more uncertain than he had been before he entered. The NCR seem to be gaining back some of the land lost in the aftermath of their decimation at Hoover Dam, and Tullius mentioned nothing of what had appeared to be a new contender approaching from the southeast. With talk of raiding a location on the cards, Arthur can only imagine that Tullius sees the need to secure their territory.

As he returns to the training yard to take over from the legionary instructing his drills, he passes Plenus and his men. Varius is amongst their ranks, his sweat-drenched blond hair slicked back on his head. His fellow legionaries are amongst the finest in the centuria, but Varius still stands out the most — what he lacks in strength with his lean, lanky form he makes up for in determination and ferocity.

If Tullius is indeed to send Arthur to claim the settlement in the Legion’s name, he knows who he wants at his side.


	4. Interlude — Livia

_September 2289 — Legion encampment_

She quickly grows bored in Arthur's absence. Without him around there is no one to talk to, no one to distract her from the dull monotony of camp life. She might have settled for Varius’s company at the very least, had he not been gone too. 

To make matters worse, without a decanus to tend to day and night, she is expected to carry her weight around camp. Quite simply, for the first time in months, she has to work. 

Nonus shows her no sympathy when he begins assigning her tasks — carry this burden here, bring pails of water there, help mend the perimeter fence. By noon, when the sun hits its highest point, her bright yellow dress is crinkled and the hair at the nape of her neck is sticky with sweat. 

She wonders, as she walks away from filling a bath for one of the decani’s kept women, if Nonus is punishing her. Of all the women claimed by the legionary officers, she is probably one of the most difficult — she and Nonus constantly butt heads and she might regularly leave his company with lashes across her back if she hadn't already made an art form out of cosseting men's tempers. 

She takes a brief reprieve on her way back to Nonus’s station, using the stream to wet her hair and wash her face. 

As she wrings out her hair, her glance wanders. Far up the stream, on the other bank, a pair of older women with lined faces speak quietly while they wash clothes. Beyond them, a mongrel drinks deeply from the water. Upstream of her, a girl fills a pail with water and begins the arduous task of heaving it to its destination. 

Livia’s eyes are glazed in a daydream as she stares off down the bank, soothed by the sounds of bustle as the laborers go about their day. She doesn't notice at first when a shadow falls briefly across her, providing her momentary shelter from the relentless sun; it's only once it's gone that she registers it was there to begin with. 

The Ox is bigger up close than she had expected. His torso is bare, his broad shoulders heavily muscled — what she notices more than that, however, is the cuts and bruises all over him. On his hands they're just nicks and tiny contusions; the further up they go, the more noticeable they are.

He towers over her where he stands and she thinks for a moment, once she has recovered from the surprise of finding him standing there, that he's not as angry as she had always thought — his big brown eyes are almost hidden under his furrowed brows, but the crow's feet at the corners prove that he was capable of smiling once. 

‘I think you dropped this,’ he says. He lowers his hand for her to look at whatever is contained therein; it's one of the bright yellow buttons from her dress, dwarfed in the calloused palm of his hand. 

Livia looks down at herself and sure enough, one of the buttons is missing from her dress, the material torn where it must have snagged on something while she worked. 

‘ _Great._ ’

She reaches out to take the button from his grasp before it occurs to her to show some caution around this man. Hesitantly, she scoops the offending object from his palm and promptly withdraws her hand. 

‘Thank you.’

He nods curtly and before he can leave she's struggling to her feet, her knees creaking from the day's exertion. 

‘Do you have a name?’ she blurts. 

He looks surprised: that she's still speaking to him, that she should be asking him a question about himself. While there is no hierarchy among the cattle — and that's precisely what they both are to the Legion — there's no mistaking how different they are. Her hands are delicate and pale, and she knows the newly accumulated dirt under the nails will wash away with minimal effort. _His_ hands, however… 

She looks at those hands again now, at the tan skin intermingled with clumps of freckles, and follows upwards to his arm. She's never seen someone so strong — the veins stand out on his taut skin and when he seems to flex unconsciously, she watches the way the flesh moves across the muscle underneath. 

The Ox is a fitting name, though she doubts the slave master meant it as a compliment when he gave it to him. 

‘Frederick,’ he replies.

She watches him surreptitiously cross his arms over in front of him, absently scratching at a scab on his forearm. She knows she probably shouldn't be staring, but she doesn't care. It's a distraction from the tedium. 

‘Doesn't have quite the same ring to it as “the Ox”,’ she says, belatedly dragging her eyes up to meet his. ‘I like it, though.’

He looks painfully awkward as he stands there, turning his dark eyes down to stare at the dirt underfoot. She gets the feeling he's probably waiting for her to dismiss him; it's almost sweet that he thinks she has that sort of power. 

‘I'll see you around, Frederick,’ she says, and as he blankly stares after her she straightens out her dress and saunters off.


	5. III

_September 2289 — NCR territory_

The night is still. Beneath a waxing moon, the legionaries wait.

Arthur watches.

The night before last, Varius scaled the walls of the settlement and committed its layout to memory, along with the patrol routes and shift changes of the NCR soldiers. Arthur was almost disappointed to learn that the fortification isn't as well-manned as he had suspected; there's more glory in prevailing against heavy resistance.

Nevertheless, Plenus had been more than happy to follow his lead in the planning stage. It flattered the man to believe that he had been sent along by Tullius on Arthur's recommendation; he didn't need to know that it was only so that Varius could be involved. Arthur feels there is no harm in allowing the man's ego to be stroked.

Though one of the lenses in his binoculars is cracked, Arthur can see enough of the settlement to know that the settlers have turned in for the night.

There are a few stragglers in the streets, but they disperse soon enough. In half an hour the night shift will come into rotation and there will be twice as many soldiers on patrol, to ward against just such an attack.

He has to force himself not to hold his breath as he awaits the signal, purposefully inhaling and exhaling at a measured pace and counting each breath. He reaches thirty two when a glint catches the moonlight. When the glint comes again in a repetition of the same pattern, he issues a short whistle and scrambles to his feet.

They each have torches doused in fuel, in case it should come to it. The walls and the location of the settlement are what make it such a strategic position — the buildings themselves, and the occupants, are expendable.

He will do what has to be done, as he knows his men will too.

He only knows for a certainty that the snipers in the towers have been taken care of when no shots ring out as he and the others deftly make their way down the hill that served as their vantage point. The gates will have been unlocked by now as well, and he holds an image in his mind of the path that the soldiers on gate duty will take.

They slip through the gate in two groups; his will be the second. Once the first has gone ahead of them he counts the seconds silently. From the looks of still concentration on his men's faces he can tell they are doing the same, preparing themselves for his inevitable signal. He has trained them well.

On the other side of the gate he can hear quiet chatter and the soft scuff of boots on dusty concrete. The patrol is a little behind schedule, moving perhaps more lazily than usual, but he allows enough time for them to pass given the length of their strides.

He opens the gate and ushers his men in.

It has been longer than he can recall since he has been inside walls like these. In Legion territory, the relentless rhythm of the camp doesn't let up simply because the sun has set; there are nights when he wakes up from a bad dream to hear the chilling moans of the crucified, their prayers reaching him even his tent. Some beg mercy of Caesar, others of Mars, the god of war. Arthur has heard many different names uttered in prayer over the years, each of them just as ineffective as the last.

Here in the settlement there is an odd sort of peace that makes Arthur feel dizzy in its familiarity. All at once he wishes he were back in the encampment, in Livia’s arms, amid the incessant noise. He tries to draw his mind back to the moment but even as he moves into the shadows he feels the tug of it all — the insidious sense that in another life, he might have called somewhere like this home.

He bites the inside of his cheek so hard he draws blood and the taste, copper and salt, is enough to ground him. It is the taste of failure, the taste of victory. It is the taste of a childhood spent getting knocked down by his brothers at arms until he was good enough and strong enough to never be knocked down again.

A beat, and he is ready. Raising his hand, he signals to the others and they move out.

* * *

He isn't sure if it's his own blood he tastes in his mouth, or that of the soldier whose throat he had slit.

She had been asleep, or so he had believed; when she suddenly leapt off her cot with a cry ready on her lips he had silenced her with rehearsed grace.

There might have been a time when he would have wanted to save her, to spare her from such a brutal fate. He knows now that there is no such thing as mercy among the Legion; he knows that death is better at least than enslavement.

They send a runner back with word of their success; the rest will remain to maintain the location until reinforcements arrive. The advantage of having infiltrated the place is that they know its weaknesses now and won't make the same mistakes.

He knows that their boldness will in turn cause the NCR to retaliate, but he isn't afraid. If anything, it might do the Legion some good to fight an old foe. The stalemate with the Brotherhood to the north has gone on for too long.

He spends much of the night making plans with Plenus in the event that the NCR are quick to retaliate. When Plenus retires to rest come dawn, Arthur calls Varius in from his patrol. They share a bottle of whiskey plundered from beneath one of the bunks in the barracks.

‘There might be a promotion out of this for you yet,’ Arthur remarks, filling Varius’s fourth glass for him.

He had hoped to give his friend just such an opportunity; he feels nothing but pride.

“What, to decanus?’ Varius laughs and wrinkles his beak-like nose. ‘You gave the orders, I just followed them. If anything they'll have you in veteran armor before the year is out.’

Arthur doesn't dare admit he has been hoping for as much. Even amongst friends, arrogance is a weak trait — still, he accepts his friend's praise. He allows himself just once to feel pride in himself and tips his glass in a toast.

‘Wherever I might rise, that you may follow.’

‘True to Caesar,’ Varius says, and it's clear from his tone that he is being overly earnest. He's mocking Arthur.

This flippancy could get them both in trouble, and yet his own insistence on propriety only ever seems to make Varius worse. The man takes his duties seriously, but there are times when Arthur wonders just how far his friend's devotion stretches.

‘If you outgrow Livia, do you think I could have her?’ Varius asks casually.

It's meant as a joke, but anger flares up in Arthur, making his temples throb. It's the same anger that used to get him into fights all the time with his fellow prospects as a kid. He's older now and makes an effort to be wiser, but it seems to run against his nature.

‘You think she'd have _you?_ ’ he counters.

Varius is grinning, seemingly unaware of Arthur's irritation, as he climbs to his feet and moves around the table to stand behind him. Arthur can feel his friend’s breath on the back of his neck. Heat prickles at the neckline of his tunic; he feels dizzy and he can't completely blame it on the whiskey.

‘If she won't, I'd settle for you instead,’ Varius murmurs, and Arthur can just about picture the little smirk on his lips, one side quirked higher than the other. He feels those same lips brush against his ear.

Both of them are breathing heavily, at first at odds with one another and then eventually, inexorably, in the same rhythm. Varius slips his hand beneath the collar of Arthur’s tunic and finds his collarbone, tracing across it with a featherlight touch.

All at once Arthur misses Livia — misses her touch — and realizes he’s not annoyed any more.

He shivers.

Varius pulls away then and moves around him, leaning back against the table before Arthur. He cocks his head to the side _just so_ , a non-verbal request for permission. Arthur watches his friend’s tongue dart out to wet his lips and wonders involuntarily how it would feel to be kissed by him, to crush against that pretty pink mouth.

The thought excites him as much as it sickens him.

When Varius reaches out a hand to rest on his leg, Arthur grips him by the wrist and digs his blunt nails into the other man’s flesh, his blue eyes dark in warning. His still-heaving chest seems to belie the gesture, but the anger he feels is white-hot. Varius in turn goes wide-eyed, his face blanching.

‘You should get some sleep while you can,’ he says, forcing out each word as levelly as he can. His eyes instinctively track down to Varius’s lips and once again he flashes on the thought of what it would feel like to kiss him.

‘Of course, Decanus,’ his friend says meekly.

Arthur lets go of his wrist. There are red marks there in the shape of his fingers, standing out vividly on Varius’s golden skin.

He watches his friend retreat and stares at the door for a long time after Varius has closed it.


	6. IV

_October 2289 — Legion encampment_

The incident goes unmentioned. To a casual onlooker it would seem that nothing has changed between Arthur and his friend, but to him it’s palpable. There’s a tension there, just under the surface. He writes it off as anger over what happened but at night, alone with his thoughts while Livia sleeps, he’s not so sure.

The Legion claimed the NCR settlement as their own, but word reaches them that the Republic retaliated in kind by decimating one of their camps in the border territory. The atmosphere changes in the encampment and failure is met with brutal punishment; he makes his usual rounds of the training yard one day to discover that a number of legionaries have been replaced. Varius is among them.

He tries to question Plenus about it as casually as he can, but it proves fruitless. The decanus doesn’t know much about the matter, and he doesn’t seem particularly bothered by it — men are replaced all the time when they prove too weak or otherwise unfit for the Legion’s ranks.

A balmy midweek evening sees him in his tent with Livia, allowing her to give him the haircut that she has been pestering him about for days now. She seems unusually absorbed in her duties as she silently trims his hair bit by bit, the repetitive sound of the gliding scissors serving to soothe him into a half-dream. He stares unseeing at the wall of the tent where it is still marked with a faded stain.

‘Let me try to tame that beard,’ she says softly, her dulcet voice tugging him from his reverie.

He allows her to trim his facial hair; when she seems unsatisfied with her efforts, he doesn’t even argue when she fetches a bowl of water, some brahmin-fat soap and a straight razor. She tilts his head this way and that as she works, lifting his chin with a gentle touch of her fingers. Once she finishes up and shows him the result in her hand mirror, he’s surprised by the effect. He let his beard grow in as soon as it began to sprout as a teenager; the clean-shaven man staring back out at him from the reflection looks nothing like him.

‘You look younger,’ she remarks thoughtfully, setting the mirror aside.

Arthur has to admit he agrees with her, although he sees where she had been going with the look — he seems more austere now, with his angular jaw line on show, and his hair slicked back at the top and short on the sides.

‘Arthur,’ she begins, before catching herself. ‘ _Regulus_. I heard something from one of the girls today.’

She's halting as she speaks, infuriatingly so. She can't quite seem to meet his eye and soon she's bustling about, tidying away the grooming implements.

‘Yes?’ he prompts. ‘Spit it out.’

Livia has her back to him but he can see the tension in her shoulders, her fingertips drumming lightly on the desk in front of her. She turns to him and thumbs over the edge of the wooden surface.

‘It's about Varius,’ she says finally. ‘I don't know how much truth there is to it, but there's talk that he was sent to train with the frumentarii.’

Arthur registers relief first of all, glad to know that his friend is well at least. The feeling fades soon enough as the weight of Livia words sinks in.

The frumentarii are Caesar's intelligence officers — an elite unit, they operate outside the usual ranks of the legionaries. The training is supposedly gruelling, but if Varius succeeds he'll be one of Caesar's most trusted men.

The thought of it is infuriating.

He watches absently as Livia carefully sweeps up the dark strands of hair scattered on the floor. He thinks of the raid at the NCR settlement, and the pride he had felt in seeing his friend perform so admirably. He tries to steer clear of thoughts of what had happened over the bottle of whiskey, but the more he tries not to think about it, the more it threatens to fill his head.

‘I'm going out,’ he says darkly. He doesn't care to say where; he isn't entirely sure.

It should have been _him_.

* * *

 

It takes a great deal of willpower not to storm into Tullius’s command tent and demand that he be sent in Varius’s stead. Even if he were somehow foolish enough to do such a thing, he knows that it would be for nothing. The frumentarii are hand-picked by Caesar; if Varius is to join their ranks, then it's all but written in stone.

As time passes he manages to persuade himself in part that he never wanted to be among the frumentarii, although when he says as much to Livia she doesn’t seem convinced in the least. He senses in her the same thing he sees in himself — dashed hopes, ambitions left unchecked. He wonders when she became so power-hungry; he wonders when it happened to him, too.

He works his contubernium harder than ever, and when they reach breaking point and one of his men makes a crucial mistake, he has the others beat him half to death. Even as he gives the order he can’t stomach it and strides away, hiding his disgust.

In a short time he is no longer merely respected, he is feared.

Word reaches them of an approaching band of tribals, and as Tullius consults with the decanii at the command tent Arthur suddenly understands the unfamiliar marker he had seen on the map weeks earlier. With the Brotherhood consolidating their lands to the north, the NCR approaching afresh from the west and a new contender to the southeast, it seems the battle that everyone has been craving may not be far away after all.

‘We are as yet uncertain of their numbers,’ Tullius informs them, ‘but there are reports of branches further to the south and east.’

Not for the first time, when the decanii are dismissed, Tullius has Arthur stay behind. The centurion is silent for a long while as he shuffles pieces around on the map.

Arthur considers using the opportunity to ask about Varius, but when he steels himself to do so the words catch in his throat.

‘It would be easy to dismiss them as an unlikely threat,’ Tullius says eventually. His mouth is stern, but Arthur imagines he can see a light in his commander's eyes — excitement, perhaps. ‘But the Legion knows perhaps better than most just what tribals such as these are capable of.’

Often, at times of war, the uncivilized ranks of the tribals have meant the turning point in fiercely contested battles — Arthur recalls a tale from his youth of the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, where Caesar feared the Great Khans of the Mojave enough to send an envoy. With conflict on two fronts, it could be their undoing to have to contend with a third force.

Arthur knows as well as Tullius does that if they lose this encampment, the Legion will most likely cede the territory they have won here. It would surely mean dishonor for their centuria.

‘We will destroy them if we have to,’ Arthur says, his words measured and clipped.

He can feel it within his chest, welling up — not fear, but anticipation. It has been far too long since his skills were put to the test on the battlefield.

‘It may not come to that yet,’ Tullius says. ‘But if it does, I expect you to lead our men at my side.’

Arthur leaves the command tent emboldened. For better or worse, Tullius has taken note of the strides he has made in shaping up the camp to be ready for combat.

Privately, he hopes the tribals march on them. It would be the perfect opportunity to prove himself to Caesar, once and for all.


	7. V

_October 2289 — Legion encampment_

They have been on alert for the past two days since the tribals first appeared within view on the horizon. While it seems that they are poised for battle, Tullius shows a certain reluctance to give the order. The inertia starts to get to Arthur and he takes it out on Livia, on his men, on anyone who crosses his path.

The tribals send an envoy. They request to speak with the Legion.

Tullius arranges for tents to be set up at the halfway point between the approaching tribals and the Legion camp. He brings only a handful of their most trusted men, picked with Arthur’s assistance, and then elects to leave the encampment in Plenus’s hands. Arthur has the dubious honor of being brought along as well. 

The Legion are the first to settle in. Tullius has his slaves prepare bottles of wine and the finest food they have available to them — far richer fare than anything the legionaries have been eating. They not only plan to impress the tribals with their generosity, but also show that they have been thriving.

The tribals who arrive shortly afterward are a ragtag band, some dressed in raiding leathers while others don more colorful attire, ranging from robes to scavenged Vault suits. They have a pack brahmin with them, which is noteworthy only for the red clay that has been used to paint its mottled coat with a variety of symbols that are unintelligible to Arthur.

At the head of the group are a small number of guards who station themselves under the main canopy where Tullius and Arthur wait; close behind follows a tall, imposing man with a woman at each of his tattooed arms. His hair is almost as long as Livia’s, the dark tendrils wild where they spill down his shoulders. Some of the strands have been coated in red clay as well, and strung with beads of a variety of materials — Arthur spots plastic among them, as well as something that looks like dull blue and green glass.

The woman at his left side is almost unremarkable — pretty, yes, but nothing of note. The one to his right, however, carries herself with pride, her head held high with her long dark hair woven into a braid that coils down her collar. Her eyes are thickly lined with black and her lips are painted to match the red of her dress, which flows long at her feet. Somewhat incongruously, she wears spiked shoulder pads and a leather chest plate. At her waist is a long blade. 

The man leans in close to her ear and they confer for a moment before they part from one another. He takes a seat on the ground with the first woman still at his side; the woman in red moves ahead to approach Arthur and Tullius and lowers herself to her knees before them, head dipped low in a convincing portrayal of reverence. 

‘I am River,’ she says, her voice softly accented. Up closer now, Arthur can see that her skin is a deep olive, much like that of the man behind her. ‘I speak for Black, leader of the Ten Crows tribe.’

If Tullius is irritated by the prospect of parlay with a woman, he doesn't show it. He makes a subtle gesture with his hand and one of his girls rushes forward to serve each of them wine. She quakes visibly as she pours a cup for Black and is quick to retreat. 

‘I am Centurion Tullius,’ he says, ‘and this is Decanus Regulus. We speak on behalf of the great Aurelius Caesar.’

Again the woman bows her head deferentially. Arthur wonders if tribals could ever understand the concept of a demigod like Caesar.

‘It is an honor to have the chance to treat with you, Centurion Tullius and Decanus Regulus,’ she says, lifting her chin to meet first Tullius’s eyes, then Arthur's. ‘It is our hope that both sides may emerge from this meeting as friends.’

Out of the corner of Arthur's eye, he sees Tullius’s lip quirk in response to being addressed by their rank as well as their names. Arthur supposes they don't have much of a military hierarchy in their tribe. 

‘Actually, we had hoped for more than that,’ Tullius says. ‘It's not unheard of for Caesar to form strong bonds with tribals and march to war alongside them. There would be great glory for your people in helping us destroy our enemies.’

River looks surprised for a moment, and in the time it takes her to formulate a response, Arthur can hear the other woman murmuring low into Black's ear. It dawns on him finally that she's a translator. As if to prove as much, Black perks up and says something in an unfamiliar tongue, to which River replies with a slight smile.

‘It is not the way of our people to go to battle against those who have done us no harm,’ she states placidly.

Arthur wonders how she can be so calm while rejecting an offer of an alliance from someone as formidable as the Legion. 

‘Then why ask to meet with us?’ Tullius asks. ‘We're prepared to offer you a great deal if you were to fight at our side.’

The translator is busy filling in for Black, but River doesn't wait before responding. She seems mildly perplexed, though still patient. 

‘To share knowledge,’ she says. ‘To exchange ideas and customs. To co-exist peacefully, and to benefit from all that we have to offer one another.’

Arthur laughs. He can't help it — the whole thing seems so ridiculous. He had been under the impression that the tribe's leader was a great warlord, and yet he allows a woman to speak on his behalf with talk of peace and friendship. Frankly, it's insulting. 

‘And what could we possibly gain from such an exchange?’ he counters, letting his voice drip with disdain. ‘Why not simply eradicate you, if you have nothing of worth to offer us?’

River's golden eyes narrow dangerously and Arthur knows he has gone too far. Even the translator seems reluctant as she relays his words to her leader. 

Tullius, however, looks the most irritated of them all. 

‘Regulus,’ he says, his voice low in an implied warning.

Arthur falls silent, although his opinion hasn't changed. He doesn't know why Tullius doesn't just give the order to be rid of them then and there. 

The centurion lifts his hand and clicks his fingers at his girl, and she scurries up close so he can murmur into her ear. With a nod, she turns and runs away, back in the direction of the encampment. Arthur feels a thrill as he wonders if that is the signal for the legionaries to move in. 

‘It is not our way to dilute our customs with those of outsiders,’ Tullius says, calm and fair, ‘but we do believe in drawing from the strength of our allies.’

He reaches for his wine and takes a draught from it, savoring the liquid before continuing. 

‘What we want from you is your warriors,’ he states. ‘Word has spread of your people's victories against those who have done wrong by you, and we would like to take advantage of that. If your leader would be willing to change his mind, we feel there is plenty of value that we could offer in return.’

Black throws his head back defiantly once his translator finishes and barks something irritably at River. She puts her hand up and the gesture leaves Arthur confused — is she signalling that she understands his words? Surely she can't be silencing him. 

‘And what could you possibly offer that would convince us to make an enemy out of people who might otherwise have left us alone?’

With a little delay, Arthur realizes she is echoing the words he used earlier. When he glances up, he finds she is already staring at him — a little coldly perhaps, but it's almost as if she's appraising him. 

Tullius is silent awhile, filling the pause by draining the contents of his cup. Arthur tries to distract himself from the discomfort in his legs from being seated for so long by wondering how many of the Ten Crows there must be waiting back at the tribal camp. However many, it could never be enough to triumph over the Legion’s discipline and determination. 

River waits with immeasurable patience, helping herself to some of the food set out before her. She is careless as she bites into a barrel cactus fruit, sending the pale juice running down her wrist.

When Tullius’s girl returns a moment later, Arthur detects a ripple amongst the ranks of the tribals. Even Black seems unsettled and, perhaps more importantly, finally intrigued. He seems to sit up with more of an interest. 

Arthur turns to look at what has them so arrested. Tullius had the girl bring the Ox.

Tullius waves his hand. 

The legionary who accompanied the girl tugs at the rope binding the Ox’s wrists and pulls him forward until he is standing before River. With a brutal kick to the back of the leg, the legionary has the Ox kneeling.

The man's torso is bare, perhaps to better show off the full extent of his size. Even Arthur has to admit he makes for an imposing figure — a symbol of the Legion’s strength. Perhaps it is fitting that they named him the Ox when Caesar's banners bear the emblem of a bull. 

‘A gift,’ Tullius says. ‘For your leader.’

Arthur understands now — Tullius’s curiosity about the Ox months earlier, keeping the man in camp in spite of his constant disobedience. Even as he watches the tribals study the Ox, he knows that they're curious. That's a good sign. 

‘And who are you?’ River asks thoughtfully. 

‘We call him the Ox,’ Tullius replies. ‘He is as strong as four men.’

River narrows her eyes as she looks the man over. Behind her, Black murmurs into the ear of his interpreter. The girl giggles suddenly, the sound clear as a bell, and her cheeks flush a vivid shade of pink. 

‘Does this Ox have a voice?’ River asks. There's a hard edge to her voice — distaste, perhaps. 

Tullius gives another knowing smirk.

‘When he chooses to,’ he replies.

He rises to his feet and approaches the Ox, knotting his fingers into the man’s dark hair and using it to yank his head back. Arthur can hear the Ox grunt slightly in surprise and pain.

‘The collar he wears is a useful device,’ Tullius says. He tilts the Ox’s head at such an angle to show the slave collar more fully. ‘You can consider it insurance — as long as he wears it, he'll be yours to command as you see fit.’

If there hadn't appeared to be distaste on River’s face before, it's unmistakable now. Her eyes are trained on the collar and Arthur sees she has gone rigid. She opens her mouth to speak out, perhaps intending to voice her distaste, but Black cuts across her, his unintelligible words easy and languid. Through the tribal’s abundant beard, Arthur can see he wears an ironic smile. 

River twists at the waist to look back at her leader, sending her braid rippling down her back. She replies in turn; while they speak the same language, her use of it sounds more melodic. They debate amongst themselves for a while, Black growing impatiently amused as it goes on. Arthur wonders what kind of a leader he is to allow this woman to question him so stubbornly. 

When River turns back, she looks mildly exasperated. 

‘Black of the Ten Crows tribe has a proposition,’ she says. ‘If this man is truly a gift, we would see his abilities first hand.’

Tullius lets the Ox’s head drop, the slave all but forgotten as he turns his attention on the tribals once more. 

‘Of course. He can lift anything you might please—’

‘You misunderstand,’ River interrupts. ‘We have brahmin to serve as beasts of burden. If this man is as strong as you say he is, let him prove his worth in combat.’

It's not an unusual request of in a transaction such as this, although Arthur finds himself surprised. Their scouts reported an abundance of fit warriors amongst the tribals’ ranks. 

‘Very well,’ Tullius says. ‘I can have him fight my own men, or yours — whichever you please.’

At this, Arthur catches the ghost of a smile on River's lips. Even as she hides it a moment later, he can still see it in her golden eyes. It isn't pleasure, or excitement. It's amusement. 

‘I would have this man fight _him_ ,’ she says. She raises her arm and points, the slight flick of her wrist sending the hammered metal bangles she wears clinking against one another. 

Arthur realizes a moment too late that she's pointing at him.


	8. VI

_October 2289 — Legion encampment_

Arthur and Tullius are silent. 

River allows her amusement to show more openly now, letting her arm drop to her side as she watches the two men for their reaction. She seems especially interested in Arthur, brazenly studying him.

As if sensing Arthur's anger, Tullius raises a hand to halt him before he can say anything to further compromise the situation. 

‘Regulus is a seasoned officer in our army,’ Tullius says. His emotions are impossible to read from the level tone of his voice. ‘To do as you ask is beneath his skills.’

River shrugs her shoulders. 

‘How do we know the worth of this gift if you will not show it?’ she asks in a tone that is infuriatingly sage. ‘To pit him against any mere warrior would show us nothing. To see how he holds his own against one of your commanders — that would prove his worth.’

As Arthur looks between the Ten Crows’ ambassador and the centurion, he sees Tullius consider the prospect with an expression of deep thought. Arthur wonders if perhaps he might have underestimated this woman, and indeed the tribals: she seeks to flatter them on the face of it, while subtly challenging the true value of their gift. There is no way to refuse her terms without deeply insulting their prospective allies. 

She's good at what she does; he understands now why Black allows her to speak for him. 

‘Very well,’ Tullius says, after a pause. He turns to Arthur and nods, his face grim. His expression seems to convey a number of things, and if he were to speak Arthur imagines the centurion would warn him not to fall at the hands of a slave. 

Tullius gestures to one of the legionaries standing at attention under the canopy. The man approaches and, once at Tullius’s side, allows the centurion to relieve him of his machete. 

‘They will fight with blades,’ he says. ‘To make it fair combat.’

They each rise and move from the canopy to a spot out in the wastes a little away from the tents. The sun is high, at a slight angle above them. As Arthur unsheathes his own machete he moves into position with the sun behind him. 

The tribals seem to buzz at the prospect of the fight, although River exudes indifference as she patiently waits for the combat to begin. For a moment Arthur wishes he could see inside her head — to know whether she is intimidated by the Legion, or simply views them with mild annoyance. She certainly doesn't act as though she feels threatened. Arthur isn't sure how he should feel about this, but he pushes the thought from his mind. 

Tullius pulls the Ox around to face him and uses the machete to cut open the bonds at his wrists before handing over the weapon. The Ox weighs it in his grasp, checking the balance before giving it a few experimental swings. He carries it more like a finely-honed sword than a machete. 

They take position across from one another in the middle of the haphazard ring formed by onlookers from both sides. As Arthur faces combat with the Ox for the first time, he feels an odd stab of fear. He has triumphed in one-to-one combat against far more formidable enemies, of course, but the Ox’s steely silence is disconcerting.

With his own machete in hand, Arthur circles the Ox and watches as the man mirrors the maneuver. While watching him move, it's easy to forget that he is a slave — that the collar around his neck guarantees his obedience. The Ox carries himself like a skilled fighter, and his body seems to shrug off months of hardship as muscle memory takes over. 

Arthur is accustomed to watching men be broken and remade into slaves; he has never witnessed the opposite until now. 

They spend the first few minutes getting a feel for each other's style, giving the occasional thrust or parry. Arthur finds it unsettling that the Ox seems so quick to adapt. 

When the Ox makes his first strike in earnest, Arthur deflects it easily only for the slave to swing again, this time under his guard. Arthur dodges backwards, but not before the rusted tip of the machete glides across the studded leather of his chest plate. 

Arthur hears the tearing sound as the blade slices through the topmost layer of his armor, but he doesn't look down; instead he swings his own weapon at the Ox’s outstretched arm. Their machetes meet in a shrill metallic clash and the recoil jars Arthur from wrist to elbow. 

They each take a few steps backwards to size each other up once more. Arthur can feel his veins sing with adrenaline and, as he watches the Ox, he thinks he sees a glint in the man's eye. He isn't made for labor, or tedious sparring in the arena. He is built for war. 

This time Arthur initiates the next attack, slashing at his opponent gracefully. Each blow is met and deflected with ease, but he can see the Ox falter as Arthur drives him back. The ring of spectators breaks apart to make way for them. 

The momentary distraction gives the Ox a reprieve; as Arthur hesitates in his next strike, the slave rolls under his swinging arm and slashes upwards and backwards at him once on the other side. Arthur has just enough time to use the momentum of his strike to spin around to face him. 

What should have been a relatively harmless blow to the back of Arthur's armor escalates as he stumbles; he feels a stinging sensation spread across his face where the Ox’s blade made contact, followed by pulsing heat. The taste of copper fills his mouth as blood pours down the right side of his face, gagging him and beading in his right eye. The Ox uses this to his advantage, ducking low and catapulting into him. They fall to the ground in a heap, their weapons clattering aside. 

With his left eye Arthur can see Black watching with a sneer turning up the corners of his mouth. His translator stands dutifully at his side, her face in her hands. 

He looks to River and finds her face grim and expressionless as the fight unfolds before her. Even as the Ox lays a volley of punches into his leather armor, eventually turning his attention to the gaps that leave his ribs exposed, Arthur realizes he has to impress her. This was never about showing off the Ox’s might — it's about proving the Legion’s value as allies. 

Each successive blow knocks the air out of Arthur's lungs and his body screams at him to yield, but he knows he cannot. Through the blood he can see his machete off to the right, too far to reach. To the left, however, the Ox’s weapon is almost in reach. He stretches his arm out to try to grasp it, forcing himself to focus on the handle of it rather than the pain. 

The Ox gives a feral cry as he rears up ready to throw his fist at Arthur's face, but this gives him the window he needs to stretch out just a little bit further. Finally, triumphantly, he grabs it and slashes at the Ox’s face. It's only a glancing blow, but it's enough for Arthur to regain some control. 

He shoves at the Ox, hoping to throw him off altogether, but he proves too heavy; instead he manages to reverse their grapple and gain the upper hand, slamming his shoulder into the Ox’s shoulder so that he winds up on top instead. 

Maliciously, he lands a few punches on the Ox’s bare torso while he has the chance. He knows he won't have the advantage for long, however — already his opponent thrashes like a wild beast beneath him and he cannot hope to hold off his superior size and strength for long. 

He shifts his machete and holds it in both hands, lifting it up with every intention of plunging it into the Ox’s chest. 

He feels resistance before he even gets the chance to jab the blade downwards. 

‘Stop,’ River cries.

At some point in the chaos she has moved closer and stands over the two men, her hands covering Arthur's on the hilt of the machete. He realizes dully through the pain and adrenaline that she's the one whose grasp stopped him before he could put an end to the Ox. 

He loosens his grip reflexively and River seizes the opportunity to snatch the weapon from him, tossing it aside. It lands in the dirt with a harmless thud. 

‘The Ten Crows have seen enough,’ she says. ‘We will treat with you.’

Arthur sits up astride the Ox and watches, chest heaving, as the woman walks away in the direction of the meeting place under the canopy. 

As she turns back to look at him, he thinks he sees something close to interest in her expression. He doesn't have long to dwell on it; the Ox gives him a savage shove a moment later, knocking him into his backside. Before he can retaliate, Tullius is at his side, laying a commanding arm on his shoulder. 

‘Go get yourself cleaned up,’ the centurion says. ‘You can sit out the negotiations for the rest of the day.’

Tullius helps him to his feet. Once Arthur is standing he looks over at the Ox, bleeding above his eye but otherwise mostly unscathed. He knows if he hadn't managed to snatch up the machete he wouldn't have won that bout; the dishonor would have been unforgivable. 

He strides over to the Ox and spits on him, turning away and stopping only to reclaim his machete before storming off back to camp.


	9. VII

_October 2289 — Legion encampment_

The cut on Arthur's face needs stitches; the healer informs him that he was fortunate it didn't go an inch or so higher or it would have blinded him. It's an ugly wound, which will undoubtedly leave a long, curved scar on his right cheek. He wishes he left something similarly grotesque on the Ox’s face to remember him by. 

Livia is the image of concern when he returns to his tent, fussing over him and pressing sweet little kisses all over his face. She spends a long while studying the wound on his face; many small scars litter his skin but this is the biggest, and the first on his face. 

When he informs her of the events of the day, and his eventual victory over the Ox, she can't quite seem to hide her glee. 

A messenger arrives late that evening when they sit together on the bed, Arthur running over his notes while Livia rubs the tension from his shoulders.

‘From the tribals,’ the runner says. He bears a note, which Arthur reads away from Livia’s curious eyes. 

_It would greatly please River of the Ten Crows to have your company for the evening,_ it reads. _Should this offer be acceptable to you, she will be awaiting you at the gate. She would love nothing more than to further discuss the terms of the alliance with you._

Arthur is irritated at first. The day has been long and eventful, and he had been relieved to be dismissed from further duties. He knows that everything to do with the negotiations will be handled by Tullius, so anything he personally has to add would be redundant. 

He cannot put the idea from his mind that River has sought him out personally.

Surreptitiously, he looks over at Livia. She lies back on the bed amid his papers, her long pale form stretched out invitingly. He knows that if he were to stay tonight, Livia would make it worth his while to do so. 

He hesitates and takes another glance at River's carefully printed hand. He can't help but imagine the concentration on her face as she wrote it, her brow slightly creased as she searched for the right words.

‘Tell the ambassador that the offer is acceptable,’ he tells the messenger. ‘I'll be there momentarily.’

He allows the flap of the tent to fall shut once the messenger has left and turns to Livia. 

‘Help me dress.’

She seems annoyed, but she obeys him nonetheless. She is gentle as she slips a new tunic over his head, careful not to jostle his bruised torso. He decks out in his decanus uniform without the headpiece, having nothing more formal to wear. Once he is dressed, Livia helps him brush his hair neatly into place. 

‘No more fights tonight,’ she murmurs, kissing his throat. Before he can pull away she bites into it possessively; he's sure it will leave a mark. 

He can't help the nervous jitter that runs through him as he makes his way through the camp, navigating his way by memory through the dark parts of the path between the torches. A part of him despises the tribals’ ambassador and the way she behaved at the meeting, how she failed to afford the Legion the respect it deserves. Undeniably, however, he also finds himself grudgingly respecting her. 

River is outside the gate when he gets there, with a lit cigarette crushed between her lips. The image is an incongruous one: a clash of worlds. He is surprised to see she came alone, but then he spots the sheen of the blade at her hip again. 

When she notices him walking towards her, she takes a last drag of her cigarette and drops it to the ground, crushing it underfoot. 

‘I had hoped you might give me a tour of your camp,’ she says, once he is beside her. ‘They wouldn't let me past the gate.’

‘We don't allow the dissolute within our walls,’ he replies. He doesn't bother to explain the term when she looks confused. ‘Perhaps later, when you've proved trustworthy.’

‘You don't think I'm trustworthy?’

He looks up at her, nonplussed. She's smiling — the first true, unassuming smile he's seen from her.

‘Come,’ she says. ‘Walk with me.’

She sets off without waiting to see if he'll follow. He takes one look at the forgotten cigarette end on the ground, the butt of it stained with the red of her lips, and trails after her. 

She leads him to the tents where the meetings took place and brings him to the canopy where they first met. The food from earlier has been removed, replaced with plates filled with a variety of meats served with roasted and grilled fruit and vegetables. It doesn't look like anything the Legion would prepare, so he assumes it has been provided by her people. 

‘I don't know about you, but diplomacy gives me an appetite,’ she says, sitting cross-legged on the ground by the food. She doesn't wait for him to sit before picking out a skewer of assorted grilled meats and taking a bite from it. 

Arthur stands a bit away, poised with his hands clasped behind his back. If she brought him here to toy with him, he won't play along. 

‘Among my people it's an insult to refuse hospitality,’ she says casually.

She still has food in her mouth as she talks and while Arthur's first instinct is to find it repugnant, in River it seems like an eccentricity. He watched her devour a barrel cactus fruit earlier with similar gusto and it occurs to him now that she's probably the sort of woman who seldom lets other people tell her what to do. 

‘You Legion people probably don't care about being insulting though, do you?’

His jaw twitches. He glances at her but her face is innocent; she's not even looking at him as she resumes eating. 

‘I didn't think tribals had a concept of decorum, ’ he replies sharply, and it's enough to draw a laugh from her lips — a sweet, rich sound that tugs at something in his chest.

‘If I was naive enough to think you wanted to impress me,’ she says, ‘I would tell you that you were doing a terrible job.’

Arthur finds himself scowling and wonders why he bothered to accept River’s invitation. He should have known it would go like this. 

‘Why would I try to impress you?’ he counters; she laughs again in response. 

Her attention never fully leaves the food and she considers a reply as she licks the grease from her fingertips. He finds himself watching entirely involuntarily. 

‘You never have to impress women, do you?’ she says eventually. She pours herself a cup of wine and gulps it down thirstily, blotting at her lips with the back of her hand when she's done. ‘It must be easy when you have plenty of them running around who can't say no.’

At that, Arthur gives a frustrated sigh and turns to go, but before he can get very far River calls after him. 

‘I'm sorry, now I'm being rude. Please — let me make it up to you.’

When he looks back around she pats the ground near her and flashes a smile. He knows he could just leave — probably _should_ — but he doesn't. 

River pats at the ground again a little more eagerly, and this time he complies. 

‘I'll tell you a little secret,’ she says, pouring him a drink. ‘Black is my brother. Nobody is ever good enough for me in his eyes, but that never stopped me.’

He accepts the drink, but when she goes to serve him food he shakes his head to stop her. She shrugs and gets more for herself. 

‘I was curious if your leader would even agree to speak with me,’ she says. ‘I had heard the Legion don't see women as men's equals. It's not the same in our tribe.’

‘Black doesn't speak English,’ Arthur relies. ‘What else could we do without you? Negotiate with drawings?’

Another laugh. This close, the sound washes over him and makes him feel almost dizzy. 

‘Of course not.’

There's a knowing smile on her lips as she glances up at him. Reflexively he looks at her mouth; the greasy food and wine have washed the red from her lips, revealing their true hue. He's staring now; he quickly looks away. 

‘Why did you bring me here?’ he asks. Talk is good — it keeps him focused. 

She lifts her shoulders in a shrug. Finally leaving her food aside, she licks her fingers clean again before tugging distractedly at the braid hanging over her shoulder. While she talks, she begins to unravel it. 

‘I was curious,’ she says. ‘You know, I didn't really expect you to fight the Ox. Black suggested I ask you to do it as a joke more than anything else.’

Arthur can't help it. He laughs. He watches her closely, expecting her to take it back, but she doesn't.

The braid is almost completely undone now, the black expanse of her hair falling in loose curls. Once she has the last of it free she shakes it out and allows it to fall about her shoulders; even where Arthur sits he can smell the heady aroma of whatever oil she rubbed through the length of it. 

‘I thought you were arrogant when you agreed to it,’ she admits. ‘But I realize now it's more than that. To your people, honor is important. I can respect that, even if your idea of honor is very different than ours.’

It's an admirable perspective and he almost admits as much until River renders him speechless by lifting her hand to his face. She traces her finger over the ugly expanse of the wound on his cheek and he tries not to wince from the pain of it. 

‘You would have killed him if I hadn't stopped you,’ she murmurs, allowing her hand to fall from his cheek. ‘Why?’

Their eyes meet and neither of them looks away for a long while. To Arthur it feels as though she's trying to figure him out until it dawns on him that he's doing the same. 

‘I didn't want to appear weak.’

She nods and breaks eye contact, looking away into the darkness of the night beyond the canopy. He doesn't know whether that was the answer she had hoped for, but it seems to be the one she expected. 

‘I think you are many things, Decanus Regulus,’ she says, her voice hushed. ‘Weak is not one of them.’

 _Arthur,_ he thinks. He wants to hear it on her lips as badly as he wanted to hear it on Livia’s the first time they were together. 

‘Regulus,’ he says instead. ‘It's just Regulus.’

It's his turn now to touch her, and he lifts his hand to her hair, brushing his fingers through the perfumed strands. He wonders how quick Black would be to eviscerate him if he were to see this. 

‘I hope you're planning to kiss me,’ she says ruefully. ‘I might be insulted if you don't.’

How could he possibly refuse?


	10. VIII

_October 2289 — Legion encampment_

Arthur tries to keep track of the ways they make love, but he loses count before long. As the night wears on, being close to her only seems to drive him more and more mad with desire. She is pushy and forceful at times, demanding exactly what she wants from him; others she is more submissive and gentle.

When the night inevitably turns to dawn, he reluctantly suggests that they should part ways. River responds by pushing him onto his back and straddling him, her hips coaxing him to arousal once more.

Before they separate he initiates one last kiss, delving his fingers through her soft, sweet hair.

He returns to camp on trembling legs and spends the brief journey trying his hardest not to think about her.

When he returns to his tent he finds Livia asleep. As silently as he can, he swiftly undresses, bathes in cold water left from the day before and dons a fresh tunic.

He is gone before Livia stirs.

At the meeting place under the canopy once more, he sits at Tullius’s side and attempts not to let his glance wander to the various places he and River had each other the night before. When he tries to catch her eye she artfully manages to avoid looking at him; they trade glances only once and he feels a current run between them. A moment later, it is gone.

He finds negotiations dull, particularly with his mind clouded by the lack of sleep, but they are a necessary part of his duties. River is less contrary with him now, less given to antagonizing him. If anything, there is less chemistry — on the rare occasions when Tullius gives him the floor to speak, he is passionless and matter-of-fact and she responds in kind.

They make love again that night, this time out in the wastes beneath the stars.

The fifth day of talks proves to be the last. They have worked out the finer details of what each side of the alliance expects from the other. The Ten Crows will fight at the Legion’s side and, pending the results of combat with the Brotherhood of Steel, they may renegotiate on the matter of the NCR. They will not be given any of the captured lands but they will be allowed to maintain the territories they already have under their control, and will have free passage through Legion territory should they need it.

Arthur feels the Legion are on the better side of the deal, but River seems less interested in land and more in the matter of medicine; the Legion have agreed to keep them supplied for the duration of their support in the conflict against the Brotherhood, and for a finite time afterwards.

Arthur grows distracted while Tullius finalizes an agreement whereby the Legion will gift two of their healers to the tribals, to serve as their own and to pass on the knowledge the Legion has acquired.

He spends this time studying the tribals anew, his gaze no longer tempered by his earlier distaste for them.

Black seems less formidable now — arrogant and petulant at times, patient and good-humored at others. At this very moment he is cleaning his nails with the tip of his knife. Of anyone there, he seems the least interested in proceedings.

Arthur allows himself to watch River while she works and occasionally moves to confer with her leader in hushed tones. From what he can hear of Black's voice he hears an impatience there that makes him unsuited for diplomacy.

His attention drifts from them to the tribals’ tents beyond, mottled ugly structures made of weathered brahmin skin and wood. Black's retinue is small, with the majority of the people they brought along being left en masse at a larger camp. Even in such small numbers, however, they mill about busily.

Arthur spots the Ox amongst the civilians; the slave collar is no longer fastened around his neck.

He feels a twinge of something — confusion perhaps, though more likely disgust — and turns his glance once more to River. This time he finds her golden eyes trained on him, impassively watching. He blinks and she looks away.

They will march on the Brotherhood in the new year, when the cold northerly weather has their enemy weakened. Arthur wonders how the tribals will cope in the winter, inherently nomadic as they are. Even the Legion will have to face that issue themselves, supplementing their light armor with furs.

Tullius announces that he will send word to the Scorched Pines centuria that some of the tribals’ forces will join them to the north to assist in flanking their enemy.

As the legionaries and the tribals share a meal to signal the beginning of their alliance, Arthur feels the familiar rush begin to fill him, dizzying in its intensity.

Finally, after a year of waiting, he will get his war.

* * *

The month is almost out by the time Arthur returns to the Legion encampment in earnest. He hadn't intended to linger as long as he did, but River’s indifference towards him during the day only served to drive him more desperately toward her at night.

Negotiations have long since finished; he stayed for as long as he could at the meeting place under the canopy before Tullius urged him to begin preparing the men for winter. Although it is never mentioned aloud, Arthur wonders if Tullius knows about their affair and allowed it to go on for as long as it did as a reward for helping solidify the alliance.

He pines when he is back in camp. During the day he keeps his mind busy with the legionaries under his command; Tullius eventually suggests that he begin instructing larger and larger groups made up of the other contubernia to get a feel for true leadership.

At night, when his duties have been taken care of, he distracts himself by formulating strategies and running over the information he has available to him about the enemy. Livia tries distractions of her own, but he rebuffs her advances each time.

When he finally gives in one night, eager for relief from the longing his feels for River, he is disappointed by how submissive Livia is. He tells her to try being more assertive but where in River it had been attractive, in Livia it winds up being grating.

He stalks away that night, making excuses about needing to verify something with Tullius, but he doubts she believes him. He doesn't care.

His wandering takes him towards the gate before he knows what he's doing. He dallies there for a long time, plotting the reasons he could come up with the have to visit the tribals. He knows the guards won't stop him should he decide to leave; they probably wouldn't even look up as he passed, widely respected as he now is among the centuria.

River has too much of a hold on him, he decides. When he hasn't been thinking about her, he has been thinking about how not to. She's beginning to make him weak, and that is unacceptable.

Still, as he salutes the guards and turns back from the gate, he can't help but remember the feel of her skin against his own. When he shivers, he knows it has nothing to do with the chill of the night.


	11. Interlude — Livia

_January 2290 — somewhere in the former state of Colorado_

She soaks in a bath filled with water hot enough to turn her fair skin pink. The smell of the petals floating on its surface is heavenly; she could die in this moment and be perfectly content.

There is a painful thump at her shoulder. A woman's voice curses her for getting in the way, and suddenly her eyes are open.

They are walking; they have been for days. The weather has gotten progressively cooler the more northerly they venture, and yet the stench of sweat is ripe on everyone around her. She can't even deny that she probably smells bad, too. She hasn't washed her hair since they left the encampment.

Water is a luxury she sorely misses since the Legion dismantled their makeshift camp and began the march north. They brought stores of the liquid with them, of course, but it's for drinking — she could probably be whipped for merely daydreaming about using it for a bath.

Strange, then, that the tribal woman they call River always smells so sweet with that cloying perfume of hers. Even stranger still that when Livia manages to steal a few moments with Arthur, she can catch a hint of the scent over his own musk.

She doesn't know which is more insulting: that he's avoiding her, or that he thinks he's keeping his little affair hidden. Perhaps in the relative comfort of the encampment, without days of grime ingrained in her skin, she might have played his new infatuation to her advantage and gleaned some fun from it in the process.

Her feet are raw with blisters, but she forces herself to push through the pain. The Legion does this all the time when away from Flagstaff — moving from place to place, never putting down roots for very long. At any rate, it's not like she has a choice in the matter.

What should take about a week proves to be a much longer journey; there are pockets of radiation along the way, as well as packs of feral animals, and bringing an entire centuria along with several dozen tribals slows them down somewhat. When they halt on the ninth night to settle in, Livia can barely stop herself from falling asleep on her feet long enough to lay out her bedding.

She hasn't seen Arthur in three days; the last time he was distracted and barely seemed to notice her presence as she helped him trim his freshly-grown beard. She knows with a fiery certainty that he is with the tribal woman at this very moment. The thought dogs her even as she buries herself within her furs to hold off the cold desert air.

* * *

She awakens long before the others, with no sign of dawn on the horizon. She sits up and finds that she can't return to sleep; the sound of the other slaves tossing and turning, some crying out in their sleep, and of the brahmin stomping impatiently at the dirt, is enough to have her on edge. All at once she feels a profound anger that Arthur has forgotten about her and probably sleeps soundly in the tribal woman's arms.

She climbs to her feet and drapes fur across her shoulders against the cold before carefully stepping over the sleeping figures around her.

The trip is not without difficulty; in the cloudless sky the moon illuminates much of the landscape, but it is a trying task to navigate the crush of bodies. She is wary as well of running into one of the legionaries, in case they should question her on where she's going. She has been with the Legion long enough not to be considered at risk of fleeing, but she doesn't have freedom of passage.

It proves not to be an issue; the first legionary she encounters seems satisfied with her excuse of needing to relieve herself while the second, closer to the edge of their ranks, does not question her further when she claims to be attending to one of the decanii.

She has no intention of visiting Arthur — certainly not to run into him with his tribal woman. She doesn't know where she is going, exactly. It's probably as simple as _away_.

When she breaks the boundary of the Legion and there is nothing in front of her but miles of wasteland, she feels a giddiness fill her. If she started running now, how far would she get before they caught up to her?

It's a fleeting thought — one she has had before, and which she doesn't entertain for very long. She knows that Arthur will grow bored of his new lover eventually, or the tribals will return to their nomadic ways and they will be separated. When that happens, he will come back to her and she will return to her life of comfort, of stability.

And yet… Being around the Ten Crows is infectious. Women and men move freely among the tribals, as they please. Their ranks are not unimpressive; they serve their leader willingly, for the joy of victory.

Livia doesn't know much about the woman Arthur has taken up with, but she knows River is an important part of their hierarchy. The thought of a woman being given such a prestigious place is unheard of among the Legion, but it isn't an entirely new concept for Livia.

Sometimes she thinks of her old life, when she was a little girl running free with her long red hair trailing behind her, the boys of her hometown trying desperately to grab hold of its glimmering strands. Nobody was ever fast enough to catch her, not until the Legion came.

She sits cross-legged on the brittle earth and looks up at the stars, wondering what she would have been doing right now if she hadn't been snatched from the Republic. Would she be in a bed enclosed by four walls and a roof, sleeping peacefully in the knowledge that there were guards patrolling the streets outside to keep her safe? Maybe she would still be awake now, her veins singing with cheap liquor as she danced until daybreak with some handsome soldier.

In another life she and Arthur would never have met — her allegiance being with NCR and his being with the Brotherhood.

She closes her eyes and sighs out a long, slow breath. None of these things matter, not any more. They are both the Legion's property now, committed to the end. She knows if she stood up now and began to run, she wouldn't get more than a few yards before the sound of a gunshot rang through the night. The legionaries might be lenient sometimes with her, but they aren't fools.

Eventually, when the black night sky becomes shot with the gray of the impending dawn, she stands up, dusts herself off and turns back towards her place among the centuria.


	12. IX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been completed for a few weeks now, but I reached a fork in the road and realised there were a few choices I could make with where I wanted to go with things. I didn't want to upload this chapter until I was 100% sure that it went along with the path I eventually chose. 
> 
> Sorry about the delay - the good news is I have a backlog of a couple chapters so you won't have quite as long to wait for the next update.

_February 2290 — somewhere in the former state of Colorado_

Life amongst the legionaries continues as usual, even at the precipice of war. While the heavier snows come in, the slaves set up what will become their new encampment for the duration of the battles to come. The tribals have a camp of their own, separate but parallel to the Legion. River has less time for him now, busy as she is with Black and the war council of the Ten Crows. 

He runs his men repeatedly through drills to keep them sharp, smoothing down the edges that have been roughened by their travels to get here.

Tullius informs the decanii of a scouting party on its way from the Brotherhood of Steel to estimate their numbers. Nobody questions it when Arthur's contubernium is tasked with taking them out. 

His hands are still sticky with Brotherhood blood when his squad is intercepted by a runner following their minor victory. A frumentarius has arrived at the encampment — he brings word from within enemy lines. 

He had ordered his men to keep at least one of the scouts alive and he allows the Initiate they spared to look at the bodies of her dead comrades as he gives her a message to pass on to her people. 

‘You can send as many scouts as you please to determine our numbers,’ he says, ‘but if you do, they will not be as lucky as those who died here today.’

He tells her of the crucifixes being made by the Legion, ready to string up her brothers- and sisters-at-arms. He informs her, with grim attention to detail, just how many ways the Legion can torture her people. Once her face has blanched a sickly green he shoves her in the direction of her people and lets her go. 

She has a long journey ahead of her; even if she doesn't make it to the Brotherhood alive, she'll still prove a useful message to them. 

The encampment is abuzz when Arthur and his men return. Word of their success preceded them thanks to the runner and while it isn't in the nature of the Legion to celebrate, he can feel the static in the air around him as he returns to his tent. 

He has long since stopped expecting Livia to be waiting for him, ready and willing. He could have her brought here at a moment's notice, of course; she knows as well as he does that she is still his and his alone. 

Recently it seems to him however that she has secrets of her own — he had thought she would be quick to return to his bed once they all benefited from the relative stability of life in the encampment, but she has been nowhere to be seen.

He sought her out the first night just to prove a point; they fought, arguing viciously with words meant to cut to the core, and afterwards they angrily made love. When she left the next morning, barely bothering to tie the string fastening her dress, she stopped and turned on her way out. 

‘You should make up your mind, Regulus,’ she said, bitterly. ‘You're not the only officer who'll have me.’

He had thought on it — whether she might be better suited to someone less distracted, whether indeed any of the other decanii would accept her after being his for so long. There is, as well, the matter of what exactly River means to him. He can only delude himself for so long. 

He knows he won't find Livia in his tent when he brushes through the opening, but when he finds the lamps already lit he is not so sure. He is rendered silent by who he finds there instead. 

Varius stands at Arthur's desk, toying with the small blade that had been left on its surface. It had been a gift from River, made small enough to be tucked into a boot or secreted within a belt. A crow is carved into its hilt. 

‘Rumor has it you're Tullius’s right hand now,’ Varius says. 

For another pair it might be a pitiful greeting; the manner of their parting, and the time they have spent away from one another, has changed everything. They don't greet each other as brothers any more. 

‘And rumor has it _you_ spend your days ingratiating yourself to the enemy,’ Arthur retorts. 

Varius laughs. 

‘Where would Caesar be without his frumentarii?’ he says. ‘Wandering blindly into battle with no hope of victory, like you are now?’

Varius’s words show unimaginable arrogance, and Arthur almost thinks to call him on it — but there is something more unsettling about the rest of what he said. 

‘No hope of victory?’ Arthur says. ‘What is that supposed to mean?’

Varius shrugs and tosses the knife down on the desk, paying little heed to the way it scatters the papers. He clasps his hands behind his back and paces the meager expanse of the room; Arthur can't help but think it's a habit picked up from him, after years of friendship. 

‘Caesar always considered the NCR a worthy foe, but the truth is they're mostly disorganised,’ Varius says. ‘Their sheer numbers make them formidable, but separate a handful from the others and they are weak.’

It's common knowledge — when faced with superior firepower, the Legion often sought to divide the NCR during the skirmishes leading to Hoover Dam. Demoralization was another typical strategy; slaughtering smaller encampments to send a message. They have employed similar tactics with the Brotherhood.

‘Has it been so long that you've forgotten all about the Brotherhood?’ Varius says, looking pointedly at him. ‘We were only boys when we were taken, but surely you remember — the impenetrable armor, the energy weapons.’

The reminder of their life before the Legion — of their childhood together — plucks at something in Arthur. It makes him feel a little dizzy; he balls his hands into fists to get a hold on himself. 

‘We will divide and conquer,’ he replies levelly, ‘as we always do.’

Varius laughs, sharply and without mirth. 

‘Do you think they haven't learned from their mistakes?’ he counters. ‘The closer we get to them, the more they fortify their borders. Do you think it's a coincidence that every town you have passed has been abandoned? They're prepared for you. They won't _be_ divided.’

He waits for a reaction; Arthur doesn't give him the pleasure of one. Varius makes a stifled sound of exasperation and marches towards him, prodding a finger into his shoulder where it isn't covered by his breastplate. 

‘Don't let your hunger for glory be the death of you,’ he says, almost imploring. Arthur keenly remembers the last time they were this close. ‘I've already given Tullius my report, but he won't listen to reason. He says it's an affront to Caesar to doubt that the Legion will prevail.’

Arthur considers knocking Varius’s hand away, but he doesn't. He looks down at it, forefinger still dug into his shoulder, and when he glances up Varius finally drops it. 

‘Tullius trusts you,’ his friend says. ‘If you suggest a different plan, maybe he'll listen — the frumentarii can infiltrate the Brotherhood and erode them from within. Suggest that Caesar should be there when the enemy falls and he'll arrive with another centuria in a month or so. That should give you enough time.’

Arthur considers it, in spite of himself. He knows that to do such a thing would be to show himself a poor tactician, or worse: a coward.

If they were facing the Brotherhood in the east, where their main forces are based, he knows it would be beyond foolish to assault them with only two centuriae and a band of tribals. This is merely an offshoot however; territories claimed in the Brotherhood’s name while the Legion were otherwise occupied with the NCR.

He wishes he hadn't pushed Livia away; hadn't pushed Varius away even before that. He hadn't realized how much he relied upon their counsel until now. 

‘The plan is already in place,’ he says slowly, firmly. Maybe a part of him hopes that if he sounds convincing to Varius, he'll convince himself. 

‘I hope you prevail,’ Varius says. ‘For your own sake, if nothing else.’

Varius steps away then, finally, and Arthur feels as though he can breathe again. A glance down at Arthur's knuckles would show that they have gone white from being clenched so hard. 

He watches as Varius walks away, stalking towards the exit. The man stops with his hand poised to brushed the flap open; he turns, silent awhile, and watches Arthur thoughtfully. 

‘How well do you think you know the tribals?’ he asks. ‘It's no secret that you share a bed with one of them, no matter how well you might believe you hide it.’

Arthur's cheeks color red; embarrassment and anger fill him in equal parts. He hadn't realized his affairs were a source of gossip among the legionaries. 

‘The Brotherhood knows of your alliance,’ Varius continues. ‘They've encountered the Ten Crows before and it seems they know them quite well.’

He turns away once more and it seems he might say no more on the subject until he pauses for a final time. Maybe it's a trick of the torchlight outside the tent, but it seems a smirk plays across his lips. 

‘You may not know your _ambassador_ as well as you think.’


	13. X

_February 2290 — shared encampment — somewhere in the former state of Colorado_

Arthur watches the tribals over the coming days whenever he gets the chance. He suggests an idea to River, played casual — it might help both sides to have them train together. She seems surprised, but ultimately agrees. 

‘I think Black would be grateful for the change of pace,’ she says, and they speak no more of it; it is night, and as always their attention lies elsewhere.

He is taken aback to find that the tribals are more disciplined than he would have expected; he had always imagined them a motley bunch, passionate but disorganized. Under Black's instruction they are focused. Lethal. 

One crisp morning they gather to watch the legionaries of Arthur's contubernium spar with the tribals; Black leads him around and explains the various tactics that his men use while River translates and his girl relays Arthur's words in turn. It is a different girl this time, as it usually is. Arthur can't help but wonder if that is their decision or Black's. 

Their paths leave tracks in what little snow stuck after the flurries of the night before. In spite of the cold, the warriors are focused. The activity is good for warming their blood, at least. 

‘There are women who fight for us, as well,’ River says, taking over from Black as he steps away to instruct one of his warriors. ‘Normally they train with the men, but…’

_But you don't think the Legion would approve._

‘Show me,’ he says.

He turns to watch the sparring; Black stands near the middle of the group, demonstrating a maneuver while a legionary and a tribal study his movements with similar diligence. 

River says nothing and merely nods, although he catches an odd look on her face as she turns away. 

While Black remains to instruct over the sparring directly, his girl watching indifferently from the sidelines, River leads him to where the rest of the Ten Crows’ warriors train. Among them there are women; he is not so blind that he cannot see their skill. 

‘The blade you carry,’ he says, gesturing to it where it hangs at River's hip, just visible under the layers of furs guarding her against the frost. ‘Are you any good with it?’

Something crosses her features — mild amusement, perhaps — but she is impassive as she replies. It's the same cool indifference she always shows him when they are out in public. 

‘Every member of the tribe is taught to defend themselves when they're old enough,’ River says.

She points to one of the training warriors; Arthur belatedly realizes it's a girl, probably no older than he was when he was taken by the Legion. The girl moves fluidly, with the grace of someone who has done this many times before. Her sparring partner is at least a head taller than she is and yet with each passing moment she drives him back a little farther. 

‘Some take to it more than others,’ River adds. ‘If they show promise, their training continues.Their gender doesn't matter.’

He spectates side by side with her, allowing himself to enjoy the show. While they lack some of the technical perfection of the legionaries, they make up for it in determination.

‘You didn't answer my question,’ he says. 

When he looks at her, she wears an elusive smile. 

‘Come on. Let's get back.’

They find the leader of the Ten Crows heatedly arguing with one of the legionaries, or at least attempting to — even from a little away Arthur can pick out the occasional word in English, but the rest is in his own language. He keeps gesturing wildly, then prodding the legionary squarely in the middle of his leather breastplate. 

River sighs in exasperation and jogs ahead, and Arthur watches as she grabs Black by the arm and talks him down. He seems irritated, although he backs off eventually. A few more words are shared, this time between River and the legionary, and then she returns to Arthur with Black at her side. 

‘The gift,’ Black says, jutting his chin out defensively. ‘Show your big Legion man.’

It takes Arthur a moment to determine that the tribal is talking about him; he almost balks at the description, garbled as it is. 

River seems unmoved; she speaks to him softly and he rolls his eyes, throwing his hands up in the air and turning away. Arthur watches Black's loping walk as he stalks away, reminding him somewhat of a petulant child. His girl trails swiftly behind, though not before flashing them an apologetic smile. 

‘Should we follow him?’ Arthur asks. 

All River can do is sigh. 

They lag behind, exchanging quiet pleasantries along the way. Whatever Varius might have to say of their affair being common knowledge, Arthur thinks they are discreet. To an onlooker they might seem like casual acquaintances. The only hint is whenever they accidentally touch — a knock of the shoulders, a brush of the hands — and they flinch away, as though scalded. Perhaps that's the biggest giveaway of all. 

They have to nudge their way through a small crowd to regroup with Black; he stands near the center of it, by the action. He looks at Arthur with a big, smug grin once they find him again. 

He points: two men fight while the crowd watches. One of them is the Ox. 

It brings Arthur back to his own scuffle with the man months earlier and the scar itches on his cheek, even though it has long since healed. He scratches at it through his beard, thickly grown in an attempt to hide it. 

He knew the tribals had released the Ox from his slave collar, but he hadn't anticipated this — he only grows more confused as the fighting pauses briefly and the Ox demonstrates something to his opponent, who mimics it in turn. 

‘What is this?’ he demands. 

‘He's a skilled fighter,’ River replies. ‘He offered to train our warriors.’

Arthur remembers a time, many months before, when he had seen the Ox walking freely among the tribals after he had first been presented as a gift. It had rattled him then as it does now, and he looks at River to find her staring back at him, unflinching. 

‘Is that going to be a problem?’ she asks. 

Anger flares up at the edges of his awareness, dull but insistent. And then — grudging resignation. He knows as well as she does that as a gift from the Legion, the Ox belongs to the tribals to be used as they see fit. Whatever his personal feelings on the matter, he is in no position to complain. She's toying with him, testing the limits between them. 

Black interrupts his thoughts; he chimes in in the tribals’ tongue, and although the words are unintelligible to Arthur his amusement is apparent. 

‘He says I'm too soft,’ River translates. ‘Maybe he's right.’

She turns back to the sparring pair and watches alongside her brother. To Arthur it seems the siblings aren't so different, even with Black's mud-streaked hair and River's perfect red lips. 

There is an undercurrent of noise all around them: the clash of the fighters’ weapons, the buzz of the crowd. With time, however, it seems there is something else. He hears the sound long before he knows what it is — a low droning noise, filling the air and making his head swim. It's getting closer and, in the process, much louder. 

Soon the tribals and legionaries alike are looking about themselves, their training long forgotten as they too try to find the source of the distraction. 

Black's girl is the first to spot it, pointing in the distance with a startled yelp. 

‘There!’

It hangs in the sky like an oversized bloatfly, slow and sluggish. The sound is easier to distinguish now — not a hum, but the whirr of rotors. The closer it gets, the easier it is to see the extent of its size: a contraption of dark metal, larger even than a pack brahmin. 

Arthur has seen it before. 

Black rallies the tribals with a few short, sharp commands and Arthur sees some of them draw guns to attack the strange machine, but River's voice rings out, clear and commanding, and they lower their weapons without question.

‘Is it the Brotherhood of Steel?’ she asks, turning to him. 

He nods grimly. 

‘A vertibird. If they were here to attack, they would have opened fire already.’

River lifts her glance to study the craft again, using her hand to shield her eyes from the dust whipped up by the current from the rotors. 

‘What do they want?’ she asks. She sounds a little awed — it must be her first time seeing such a thing. 

‘They're watching us.’

He looks over in the direction of the Legion encampment; there is a glint from the highest canopy signalling that they've spotted the vertibird as well. 

‘It's armed with weapons that could mow down every last one of you within minutes,’ he says. He grips River by the wrist. ‘If your people engage, you _will_ be killed.’

She nods in understanding; her golden eyes are wide with fear and, perhaps, anticipation. She gently shakes free from his grasp and calls out another series of orders, and the tribals respond quickly and efficiently, hurrying to their own camp. 

‘What will you do?’ she asks, bringing her attention back to him. 

‘I must return to the encampment,’ he says briskly. ‘Tullius will no doubt have orders. We'll relay whatever information we have back to you.’

She gives him a meaningful glance as he turns to go, something he interprets as a solemn request to be careful. He might take it in earnest if his mind weren't occupied with more pressing matters. 

He has already regrouped with his contubernium, leading them back to the encampment, when it dawns on him. 

Black gave the tribals orders in the heat of the moment and they responded almost immediately; twice River gave orders of her own, and they were carried out without the slightest hesitation.


	14. XI

_February 2290 — Legion encampment — somewhere in the former state of Colorado_

Tullius is grim when he briefs the decanii that afternoon; somehow the vertibird was an unforeseen variable, and while Varius insists that there was no sign of any such technology during his infiltration, either way the new development presents certain difficulties. Even the existence of a single vertibird could make all the difference during the war. 

‘What if we captured it?’ Varius suggests. ‘Used it to our own advantage?’

Arthur scoffs. 

‘And who would pilot it? You?’

Varius retreats into a sullen silence after that, although Arthur can't help but think on the other man's words. He mulls it over, weighing their options, and stares unseeing at the map laid out on the war table in front of them.

With his eyes out of focus, the colors of the different factions begin to blur together — gold dominates in places, the bull of Caesar, but the overwhelming majority is held by the gray of the Brotherhood of Steel. He brings his eyes back into focus and scans over the topography of the Brotherhood territory. Almost entirely flat, so there is no advantage to be found in high ground. 

‘Varius is half-right,’ he says slowly, grudgingly. ‘We have to take the vertibird out of commission.’

He has only seen such craft a few times in his life and even then it was over a decade earlier, but he knows they're loaded with enough ammunition to tear through the Legion's ranks. Even if they manage to shoot it out of the sky, the Brotherhood would only lose a couple of men compared to the dozens of casualties the Legion would suffer. 

‘What do you suggest, Decanus?’ Tullius says. 

Arthur glances up and finds everyone's eyes on him. His back straightens, his chin lifting in an almost regal affectation. This was what he wanted — prestige. Now is his chance to truly earn it. 

Reluctantly, he realizes he needs Varius’s help in getting it. 

‘The Brotherhood knows Varius as a trader. He has earned their trust, so he’ll have no trouble entering their territory again.’

He looks to Varius; the man returns his glance a little warily. 

‘Vertibirds need a landing pad — something large and flat,’ he continues. ‘A rooftop, perhaps. There must be somewhere within their main fortification that fits that description.’

Varius is silent awhile, turning his attention to the map. He moves up to the edge and pores over it, his brow furrowed in thought. His slender fingers drum distractedly, irritatingly, on the tabletop. 

Arthur finds himself studying the other man: he almost expects his former friend to turn to him, eyes crinkled, and flash him a mischievous smile — the way he has a thousand times before, the way it always used to be between them.

‘I can think of a few locations,’ Varius says after some thought. ‘My disguise will only get me so far. They're unlikely to allow civilians near such a strategic resource.’

Silence settles over the room. Arthur doesn't expect much input from the other decanii — they are all talented leaders, though not necessarily tacticians. If things had gone differently, he might have recommended Varius for promotion to decanus; while he has a tendency toward levity, he often thinks outside the box. 

‘If I may, Centurion,’ Arthur says, taking a half-step forward. He clasps his hands behind his back and stands tall. ‘Varius and I worked well together during the infiltration of the NCR settlement last year. If you'll permit us some time to prepare, we can destroy the vertibird before the Brotherhood ever knows they're under attack.’

Tullius is quiet; pensive. He considers it for only a few moments before giving a permissive nod. 

‘You'll need explosives, I assume. Put in a requisition order and you'll be given everything you need.’

Darkness has long since fallen as the decanii eventually file out of the command tent. Barely outside, Varius grabs Arthur by the wrist and pulls him aside.

‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘For trusting me with this.’

The look in his eyes is almost pitiful — gratitude; expectation. Arthur feels a twinge of remorse for how things have played out between them, but even now he can't forget what happened that night at the NCR settlement. _Almost_ happened; it's a minor distinction, although he clings to it stubbornly. 

‘We know the Brotherhood better than anyone,’ he says. Dismissive. ‘We're the two most suited to the task. Nothing more.’

Varius’s gray eyes go hard and cold as steel. Within an instant he is withdrawn and indifferent — a comrade-at-arms, not a friend. It’s better this way. Easier.

‘Understood, Decanus,’ Varius replies coolly. ‘I'll await your further orders.’

They exchange a salute out of formality and Varius turns to go. The sight of the back of him, his blonde hair catching the flickering torchlight, reminds Arthur of several nights earlier — of Varius’s words as he had left Arthur's tent. 

The vertibird is the most pressing issue at hand and they will need to come up with a strategy soon, but for once Arthur places his duties second. 

He puts his back to the encampment and to his own tent, where he knows he should spend the rest of the night strategizing. Against his better judgment he heads for the gate and, ultimately, for the Ten Crows camp beyond.


	15. XII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! First off, apologies for the delay in updating this, but I've had a good reason — there was a point in writing this chapter where things could have gone either of two ways, and I wanted to make sure I was fully committed to the avenue I chose in the end before barrelling on ahead with it. 
> 
> I have a few chapters ready to follow this one now that I'm set on the direction I'm taking, so don't worry: this story is still very much alive, no matter how divided my attention might seem sometimes. 
> 
> I think I said at some point that this story is about halfway done. 
> 
> I lied. 
> 
> (Sorry.)

_February 2290 — Ten Crows encampment — somewhere in the former state of Colorado_

River is not at her tent; her guards are elusive when Arthur arrives to see her, and even through the confusion caused by the language barrier he can tell that they're reluctant to tell him where she is.

After some blustering and threatening — on that matter, at least, there is no misinterpretation — they point him in the direction of the tent occupied by the war council. 

The tribal encampment feels entirely different to what he's used to with the Legion at this time of night; normally anyone non-essential is confined to their accommodations by now, and most of the noise comes from the dwindling sounds of legionaries training or the turning of the grindstone. 

The Ten Crows, by contrast, seem to come alive once the sun sets. Through the moth-eaten brahmin-skin tents he can see lights and silhouettes, can hear laughter and conversation. Somewhere, distantly, there is the sound of a rhythm being played on a drum.

The child-warriors that are so efficient and brutal during the day show another side now: as children, pure and innocent, they run about getting in the way of hapless adults who can only swat at them with amusement. 

Perhaps for the first time, Arthur notices the way the tribals look at him as he makes his way through their camp — an officer of the Legion, alone but formidable. Foreign; austere. Dangerous. 

If it weren't for the alliance, he and the men of his contubernium would have decimated the tribals. Perhaps they would have come on a night like this: frosty and clear, the moon glinting off the snow-blanket ground. 

Would River have fought him herself, or would she have hidden behind her personal guard? 

The tribals give him a wide berth as he moves among them. Perhaps they are right to do so. 

The war council is something akin to the scale of the centurion’s tent back at the encampment, although the Ten Crows have adorned the outer walls of it with symbols and ornaments. A deathclaw skull sits over the entrance and two warriors stand beneath it, a woman and a man, each with long braided hair and identical gleaming swords. 

‘Bring me to River,’ he demands, and at first the guards don't react. 

He glares at them; they watch him, unimpressed, and he wonders if they know how unwise it would be to make an enemy of him — and yet it dawns on him that he is one man among their many, that he has to play by their rules while in their territory. 

‘I'm here for River,’ he says. Through gritted teeth he adds, ‘If it would _please_ her to see me.’

Again, no response.

With a growl of frustration he storms forward until the woman flicks her blade out at him, catching him just beneath the jaw.

‘No outsiders,’ she says. 

She is calm, but her tone leaves no room for argument. To her left the other guard is tense, ready to cut him down should it come to it. 

‘Tell her Regulus is here to see her,’ he says. He steps a little closer, pressing against the sword. The tip of it is sharp enough that he can't tell if it has cut him or not; the wetness he feels there might be blood as much as it might be sweat. ‘I bring word from the Legion.’

The woman stares him down, her dark eyes unimpressed. When he swallows, he feels the pinch of her sword. 

Without looking away, she says something to her partner in their language. The man turns and slips into the tent, if a little reluctantly, and returns a few moments later. 

‘You go,’ he says. 

The other warrior lowers her sword and Arthur moves to enter, but she puts out a hand to stop him. 

‘No weapons.’

He moves to disarm but she gets there first; he can do little to stop her as she slips his machete free of his belt. She hands it over to her companion, who takes it with a hyena grin.

They step aside. He's free to go in. 

The tribals are gathered around a table not entirely dissimilar to the one at the Legion, although everyone here is seated. River and Black sit side by side, while a number of people Arthur has yet to meet fill the rest of the chairs. Some appear to be warriors; others less obviously so. 

River watches him expectantly; he can sense irritation from the rest. 

‘Apologies for interrupting,’ he says. ‘I have met with my leader.’

From somewhere among the unfamiliar faces comes a woman's voice, wizened but not feeble. Reflexively he tries to pick out any words he might recognize; he finds it frustrating to be at the mercy of the tribals’ translators to know what's being said right in front of him. 

‘The Falcon wishes it to be known that in her time, you would have been killed for such an intrusion,’ River says.

She glances over at the woman who had spoken and responds in soft, patient words. Black cuts across her, his voice steeped in thinly-veiled anger, and River turns to him with a glare that promptly silences him. 

‘The war council would hear what news you bring us,’ she says, affixing her glance on Arthur. 

He pauses, then moves a little further into the room. The person nearest him, a short man with braids that almost touch the floor from where he sits, turns around and cranes his neck to watch. 

‘It has been agreed that we will infiltrate the Brotherhood lands,’ he says, and he hears River translate in a low, clear voice. ‘I will go with another of our men to destroy the vertibird.’

When River finishes relaying his words, she looks back to him as if waiting for more. After a few moments pass and he says nothing else, the Falcon grumbles out some complaint. River neglects to translate. 

‘Will that be all?’

She projects a very careful calm, as though she's trying to keep her irritation at bay. All at once he's very much aware that he is an outsider; whatever he has with River, it doesn't supersede her obligations to her tribe. 

He's not so sure now what he expected to find when he came here.

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘That is all. We will send an envoy when we know more.’

She nods her head once and then her eyes are gone from him, her attention turning to the people around the table. She murmurs something to a woman across from her and they speak amongst themselves, as though he isn't even there. With some delay, he realizes he has been dismissed. 

Outside, he retrieves his machete and leaves, heading for River’s tent. He was a fool to think he could come to her here, but that doesn't change what he came to do in the first place. 

♉

The war council goes on for hours, well into the night. He doesn't find it much of a chore to occupy himself, using that time to silently strategize and keeping himself warm by running through combat techniques, but he can't help his irritation when River finally returns only to smell of wine.

She holds her furs tightly about herself and her cheeks are rosy, from the wine or the cold or both. When she sees Arthur she heaves a weary sigh and waves a hand at her guards, dismissing them with a few words. They seem reluctant to leave; when she addresses them again, she sounds less patient. 

Once the guards are on their way, she breezes past Arthur without a glance in his direction. He follows close behind. 

The warmth inside the tent is a welcome change from the bitter chill of the night; River’s servant tends to the brazier as he steps through the entryway, speaking in hushed tones with River while she stokes the charcoal inside the heater. He expects the woman to be dismissed, but River seems to have no such intention. 

Arthur waits by the entrance, hesitant. It feels almost as though he is intruding. The soft tones of both women, the intimate familiarity between the two — he is aggression and violence, they are warmth and care. For the first time in his many visits to River's quarters, he feels unwelcome. 

‘Warm yourself by the fire,’ River says, addressing him for the first time. ‘The guards said you've been waiting outside for hours.’

It comes on him almost too strong to resist — the urge to throw it back in her face, to blame her for making him wait so long, but even he isn't such a fool. As he allows River's servant to help him shed his outermost layers, he studies his lover as discreetly as he can; from the rigid set of her jaw as she moves about the tent he can tell that she's angry, barely reining it in. 

‘Do legionaries not feel the cold, or is that frowned on by Caesar?’

He looks up to meet River’s glance; her tone had been tinged with irritation and, unsurprisingly, her eyes are narrowed as she stares back at him. 

‘I've dealt with harsher weather than this,’ he retorts. ‘An army that allows the weather to cripple them isn’t much of an army at all.’

She doesn’t reply; her stare lands on him for just a little too long, a little too penetrating, and he feels the urge to look away. She’s disarming at the best of times, but this… This is different. He feels as though he has crossed a line, and yet he's the one who came here to confront her.

‘Have you eaten, at least?’ she asks.

He shakes his head. In response, River issues a quick command to her servant who promptly wraps herself in furs and leaves.

‘You shouldn’t have intruded on the war council,’ she says, her tone clipped.

He wonders if she would would be so restrained if they were any other pair of lovers, if he weren’t from the Legion. 

She turns, gathering up a tray laden with small cups and a teapot. The set is made from matching bone china; fragile, intricately painted with vibrant florals. He can’t help but wonder who went to the trouble of tracking such a thing down for her.

‘You put me in a very awkward position,’ she says. 

Her back is to him; he watches her figure as she moves about preparing tea, the sweet, pungent odor filling the air as she works. He smells some familiar spices; others are unrecognizable to him. It’s a shame — he might have enjoyed the warmth of the room, the smells, the soothing rhythm of River stirring the tea, were it any other time.

‘I understand,’ he says. ‘A leader can’t be seen to give in to the whims of a foreigner in front of her people.’

He studies her, waiting for it, breath halted in anticipation. He catches the tensing of her shoulders, the way her finely-toned arms still. The silence in the tent is almost palpable, without the clink of tea cups and the pouring of liquid. He watches her hand lower subtly, almost imperceptibly, to the sword at her hip. It lingers there for a long while.

‘I think you’re mistaken,’ she says, flatly.

‘I think I’m not.’

He wonders how quickly he could reach her before she drew her weapon; how much damage she could inflict upon him and how much he could do, in turn. Does she wonder why she was thoughtless enough to dismiss her guards? Does she wish she had her servant here still, if only to buy her some time?

‘How long have you known?’ she asks.

He sees her hand tighten on the hilt of her blade just slightly, but when she turns around to face him her arms hang limp at her sides. Even so, he sees how she watches him so warily, so ready to respond to danger. He wonders again how good she is with that blade; if he’s about to find out this very night.

‘I wasn’t sure until tonight,’ he replies. ‘You might hide it well enough when you’re interpreting for Black, but all eyes were on you at the war council. People don’t pay so much heed to a translator.’

She opens her mouth, closes it. He watches her hand twitch once, twice, as she considers unsheathing her blade.

‘What are you going to do?’ she asks.

She’s probably wondering if she’s going to have to put him down, in spite of everything they have together. He almost doesn’t notice the way her glance flicks to the machete he carries at his side; like him, she must be wondering how fast he could arm himself to retaliate.

They stand across the room from one another, neither moving nor speaking, and even now Arthur can feel that familiar charge between them. He almost relishes the thought of a fight with her; he knows she would bring as much passion to it as she does everything else in life, from describing her homelands to eating to making love.

A soft voice sounds behind him: River’s servant has returned. He sees River’s eyes widen just so, sees the way her lips purse and her brow furrows. She’s worried. She was prepared for violence, but not for collateral damage.

‘Nothing,’ he says.

The silence stretches between them for another few heartbeats and Arthur imagines what is going on in River’s head — _Can I trust him? Will he use this distraction to his advantage?_

He knows, because the same thoughts cross through his own head. And then — panic. This moment has stretched too long; by now the servant must be suspicious.

Finally, after an eternity of holding his breath, he sees River incline her head slightly. He can’t tell if it’s a signal to him, that she trusts him, or to her servant. He hears the woman behind him move, the slightest swishing of fabric as her robes move about her. 

A moment later River is giving commands to the woman in their shared tongue, every bit the leader again. Her eyes never leave Arthur’s.

‘Leave us,’ she says eventually, once the servant has finished her task — a tray of food now sits waiting for them. ‘Please ensure that we are not disturbed.’

The woman bows and leaves. It crosses Arthur’s mind that some of what wasn’t spoken in English might have been words of warning, requests for help, but the servant’s body language didn’t change upon hearing them. She even dips her head respectfully as she passes him, as she always does.

Once she has gone he waits, just in case. He hears no trample of feet outside, no telltale sounds of weapons being unsheathed. Just the howl of the wind, lonely and cold.

‘What will your centurion do with this information?’ River asks. 

Arthur knows the answer without having to spare a thought for it — Tullius would never stand for such an insult, would probably demand that River be given to them as punishment for the duplicity. Who would lead them then? Would Black take over? Just how much of what they know about the Ten Crows has been a lie?

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he says. ‘I won’t tell him.’

She watches him warily, disbelief etched into her face. Disbelief, and distrust. 

She waits, as though she expects him to add more, but he doesn’t.

He turns then, to the tray of food and the warmth of the brazier nearby it. At the periphery of his vision he sees River tense in response to his sudden movement, imagines he can see her hand go to her blade. He’s ready to draw his machete to volley any strike she may attempt to land on him, ready to kill her if he has to.

In spite of himself, he can’t help the way his muscles relax in such close proximity to the heat of the brazier. He knows that she could attack at any moment, and he wouldn’t blame her for it. Who is she to say that he can be trusted? They barely knew each other earlier that day, in spite of their frequent nights together; now it feels as though they don’t know one another at all.

‘We all have secrets,’ he says. ‘Some are worth keeping more than others.’


	16. XIII

_February 2290 — Ten Crows encampment — somewhere in the former state of Colorado_

Arthur wonders how many nights he has spent staring up at the ceiling of the tent above him, holding River in his arms while she slept peacefully.

He glances up now and the question comes to him: was last night the final time?

He wonders if he'll ever hold her again.

Slowly the clinking of bone china picks up behind him once more, but with a halting quality — he realizes River's trembling; when he turns to look at her, he sees that she's trying not to show it.

More than likely it's the comedown from the adrenaline. His own bloodstream is sour with it — he feels that sick, dizzy sensation and he chooses to fight it.

He ignores the brazier, the tempting aromas of the foods laid out by it; his stomach growls in protest, but still he moves towards River, drawn to her.

He's careful not to disturb her ritualistic motions as he approaches her — even as he places a hand on her hip, she doesn't falter.

She's in the red dress she wore the first time they met, the fabric clinging every bit as provocatively as it did then. He feels his pulse race just to think of the first night they spent together.

More than that: he feels his body ache to be held by her, and he aches to hold her in turn. To hold her, and never let go.

His mouth feels dry as he wraps his arms around her waist and it's only then that she finally stops, setting a spoon aside with infinite grace.

Arthur buries his face in her hair; drowns himself in the sweet scent of it, so familiar to him now that he wonders if anything else will ever feel like home.

‘You can trust me,’ he murmurs, and the words are almost lost in the thick black tangle of her hair.

She relaxes into his embrace, finally, and he believes her when she replies: ‘I know.’

* * *

He lies awake while River sleeps in the crook of his arm; he absently brushes his fingertips up and down her skin, gentle enough not to wake her.

She was fire and fury when they lay together — inevitably, inexorably. He felt that everything from her was a challenge, every rough kiss, every heated glance. There were times when she would look at him and hold his gaze for just one beat, two, three too many and he would try and fail to fathom what she was thinking.

It had taken her a long time to fall asleep; when she had finally succumbed to her exhaustion, she had stirred at the slightest sound.

She’s still now, but her blade lies well within arm’s reach.

Arthur permits himself this time to watch her, to take in the sight of her with her guard down. He wonders now how it never dawned on him that she always seemed to have a burden on her shoulders: the burden of ruling. He feels like a fool for not seeing it sooner.

Her breathing alters just slightly and he thinks she’ll wake; she turns instead, curling into his side. He hopes the thudding of his heart isn’t enough to wake her.

He fights sleep for as long as he can, but eventually even he can’t help but give in to its warm embrace.

* * *

He wakes with a start.

It takes a few moments to get his bearings, to remember that the ceiling overhead — so claustrophobic now, after the boundless world of his dreams — belongs to a tent, and that tent belongs to River.

River, who lies beside him now: awake, bleary, eyes wide. He sees her mouth open, forming the shape of a question, and then there is a gunshot.

They bolt to their feet with uniform urgency, each dressing quickly and lightly. River grabs her blade and sheath; from the pile of discarded armor he withdraws his machete and slips it between his tunic and his belt, against his hip.

There is no need for words as they make their way out into the camp, each moving on intuition. To Arthur, it’s a relief that River knows exactly what to do. The last thing he needs in a crisis is a burden, and River is no such thing; as soon as they emerge from the tent into the inky pre-dawn she ducks her head low and runs, full of purpose. He follows along behind her, his own eyes darting about to assess the situation as they slowly adjust to the darkness.

Before they get to where they’re going, another gunshot rings out. No, not a gunshot — the crackle of a laser rifle.

He looks over at River, but she’s already darting onward — he sees now that Black is ahead, and in the glow of a nearby torch he can see that he has a pistol in hand as he bellows orders to the tribals around him.

‘It’s the Brotherhood,’ Arthur says, as he reaches them at last. River doesn’t need to translate that, at least: Black knows well what those words mean.

He wonders if he made a mistake in letting one of the scouts live, to give his message to her leaders. It’s a common tactic of the Legion, one they have employed for years, and normally it serves to demoralize the enemy — to make them hesitate before initiating a decisive strike.

This time, it seems, it served only to embolden them.

‘Do your people have guns?’ he asks, addressing both siblings at once.

River and Black exchange glances; he wonders what their eyes say to one another.

‘Most do,’ River replies. ‘Those that don’t are far better skilled with a blade, or hand-to-hand.’

‘That won’t be enough,’ Arthur says, with a shake of his head. ‘They’ll need to get close to the enemy to be of any use, and we don’t even know where they are.’

There is a moment where none of them move, and Arthur can’t help but wonder if they’re going to die because of the tribals’ ineptitude. After a moment, however, River murmurs something to Black and the man nods, barking a few commands to the warriors around them.

It becomes clear what they’re doing after a moment: one by one, torches are extinguished, plunging the camp into darkness. They’re using the Brotherhood’s main advantage against them.

All at once, the frantic hum of noise from the Ten Crows ceases to be — panicked shouts, the thunder of footsteps, all dying down to silence. Arthur closes his eyes tightly to give them a moment to adapt, and when he opens them he can see, just barely in the scant starlight, that most of the warriors are gone from around them.

‘Regulus.’

River, at his side; she’s so close that he can feel the warmth of her breath on his neck, chasing away the chill of the night.

‘Will your people know what is happening?’ she asks.

He thinks for a moment, glances over in the direction of the encampment. A glint — a signal, for him.

‘They may not have heard the gunfire,’ he says, ‘but they can’t have failed to notice the blackout.’

He thinks she nods; it’s too dark to tell, but he feels the slight current in the air, feels her hair brush his shoulder.

‘You should go to your people,’ she murmurs. Already she’s pushing him, her touch gentle but insistent. ‘The enemy won’t breach your encampment so easily.’

A protest is on his lips, even as his better judgment tells him it is the wiser course of action, but River’s pushing him harder now and it’s clear she won’t accept his refusal.

‘What about you?’

She doesn’t answer right away; in that time she drops her hands, and he hears the scrape of her blade leaving its place on her belt.

‘Will they have night-vision?’ she asks.

‘Some, not all. More than likely the sniper will.’

Another brush of her hair against him; another nod.

‘Then go,’ she says. Before he can argue, she bolts from his side, her figure fading into the dullness of the night.

‘Caesar help me,’ he mutters.

With barely a moment’s thought, he ducks and runs after her.


	17. XIV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was both the toughest and the most fun to write. Hopefully you'll enjoy it — even if not, I'm still proud of myself for attempting something a little different than what I'm used to.

_February 2290 — Ten Crows encampment — somewhere in the former state of Colorado_

When the dawn comes, the wasteland will be replete with the sounds of life — the chirping of the cicadas, the hoarse calls of the ravens. For now, the silence that enshrouds the camp is broken only by the soft scuffling of boots on the frost-kissed dirt and the plaintive moaning of the wind.

To Arthur, the gush of his pulse in his ears is deafening: an unwanted distraction, and an unnecessary one at that.

He knows that he shouldn’t be so highly strung now, that he should be objective as all legionaries are expected to be in the heat of battle. Yet even as that fact makes its home in his head, he knows that it’s too late for him to be emotionless.

He defies all of a decade’s worth of training as he follows in River’s path. The scant cover afforded by his tunic doesn’t do much to stave off the cold while he waits for his muscles to warm up, but at the very least it allows him to be agile. He hopes he’ll be grateful for that later; he hopes he doesn’t have the chance to regret not donning his armor.

It’s difficult to find her, but then he imagines that’s the point. When he tracks her down she’s at the farthest reaches of the camp, issuing murmured orders to a small group of warriors. As he nears, he recognizes the young girl from the previous day’s training among them.

He doesn’t see the expression on her face until he gets closer: fear, and excitement.

River barely looks up when he approaches, but then she double-takes; he can see irritation in the way she rounds on him, no doubt intending to protest his presence, but then another crack of laser fire rings out. This one seems closer in origin. He wonders if the Brotherhood are moving in.

‘If they have power armor,’ he instructs River, ‘tell your people to aim for the core on the middle of their back.’

He sees her features contort in confusion.

‘Power armor?’ she echoes.

‘You’ll know it when you see it.’

He gives her a brief overview of what to watch out for, which she relays to her people, and then after a further series of orders some of her people break off. The young girl remains.

He knows the tribals were taken unawares by the attack — he was, too — but he is pleased by their resourcefulness. They equip themselves efficiently, and once they are ready they assemble in two small units in front of River.

‘Kayla,’ she says, her arms forming a come-here motion.

The young girl steps forward and holds her head high, and in the first light of the dawn bleeding into the sky he can see fearsome pride in her eyes.

‘Take your squad and do as I have instructed, ’ she orders, and Arthur finds himself surprised when the girl nods in understanding. ‘Should Black or I fall, you will lead the Ten Crows in retreat.’

The girl lowers her head: something close to a bow, in part a farewell. Then she is gone, taking her warriors with her.

‘We must move quickly,’ River says. ‘We will lose our advantage when the sun rises.’

The darkness seems a paltry excuse for an advantage when Arthur’s eyes can barely adjust, but he soon realizes as he follows River and the others that they know their way about camp without the benefit of daylight. They must have memorized their paths around their tents, counting steps and making their way by touch.

He sees a figure ahead and mistakes it at first for one of the tribals; as he catches sight of the white glint of a Brotherhood motif painted on the shoulder of their combat armor, a hand grasps him roughly by the arm and pulls him aside.

They stand in the shadow of one of the tents; River is close to him, the warmth of her body soaking through his tunic as she presses against him.

‘Don’t move,’ she murmurs, her lips brushing against his ear as she speaks.

In spite of himself, a delicious shiver winds its way through him. Even the threat of fighting on the enemy’s terms isn’t enough to make him immune to her.

The two of them stay like this, impossibly close, and Arthur hears the soft crunch of the soldier’s booted feet attempting to make a silent path through the morning frost. He hears River’s breathing catch by his ear, then slow until it is almost silent. He realizes, belatedly, that he is holding his own breath.

As he exhales, he catches the sound of a heavier footfall — then a man’s strangled cry, and a wet gurgling noise that at once chills him and makes his muscles twitch with anticipation. There is a thud after a moment, and when River lets go of him he makes his way around the tent to find the enemy slumped forward on the ground.

Even in the scant light, he can see the dark pool around the soldier, a grim halo about his head.

Kayla stands by the body, a knife gripped tight in her hand. She grins — a flash of white teeth — and scurries off in the direction she came from.

River’s hand grasps his, squeezes, and when he looks at her in surprise she is pointing past him. Another member of the Brotherhood.

His hand goes to his machete, but before he can formulate a plan to use it, River dashes ahead.

She’s a shadow moving gracefully through the dawn, black and lithe, but her blade glints like the frost underfoot as she draws it from its sheath. He watches the shadow duck, then lunge at the enemy.

There is a brief struggle, and their two silhouettes become a single grappling one; after a moment one of the bodies falls to the floor and only River is left standing, wrenching her sword from the soldier’s back.

Two have fallen; he doesn’t know how many more remain.

A stray shot rings out not far from them and, as if of one mind, River and the rest of her squad hurry toward the sound of it. He wants to urge caution — to warn them that it may be a trap — but before he gets the chance they melt into the shadows.

He does his best to follow on their tail as he hugs close to the structures around him, narrowly avoiding stepping in a pile of something that looks suspiciously like manure.

The brahmin pen is close; if it weren’t for that telltale sign he would soon have realized from the sounds that begin to filter into his awareness — the stomping of cloven hooves, and the shifting of great bodies against one another in an enclosed space.

He looks about himself, trying to find where the others have gone, and a number of things happen in rapid succession.

He hears the sound first, the shot of a laser rifle; soon after that he registers heat as the beam narrowly passes by his head. The sound has attracted the attention of other members of the Brotherhood; he hears two voices call out, followed by the trampling of feet. He has enough time to register shock, then anger at himself for being so careless, before he throws himself forward and narrowly avoids a second shot. 

He doesn’t allow himself to calculate whether that one would have hit home; he doesn’t even allow himself to wonder on it. He recovers from his fall with a lurch, thudding into something hard and unyielding.

The force of it, colliding squarely with his torso, knocks the air from his lungs, and it dawns on him that the sounds of animals stirring in their pen are all the closer now.

_The brahmin pen._

He ignores the burn as his chest screams for oxygen and reaches out with his hands, finding the bottom-most pole of the fence with one hand while he grabs at the one above it with the other. There’s enough of a gap there for him to squeeze through, but only by a hair’s breadth, and he is thankful after all that he neglected to armor himself in his haste as he slips between the poles.

He lands with an unceremonious thud that, to his ears, seems painfully loud. After a moment of bated breath — the footfalls are still far away, and the sniper doesn’t take another shot — he moves to pick himself back up.

His hands make contact with something thick, wet and horrifically sticky that he doesn’t dare to picture in his mind’s eye as he clambers to his knees. He doesn’t have much room to move amid the crush of the broad, bony forms of the beasts around him, and when he gets to his feet and takes his first halting step, his boot sinks into a similarly quaggy mess.

The brahmin have churned the ground to mud, among other things; he’s thankful River isn’t here to see this.

‘Where’d he go?’

His head snaps instinctively in the direction of the voice. Time seems to slow as he strains his ears to pick up any further speech, and he is soon rewarded as the reply comes a moment later: ‘Go that way. I’ll check here.’

_Here_ could mean a number of things, but he has a sinking feeling that it more specifically refers to his present hiding spot. His suspicions are proved true when footsteps sound out nearby, getting louder with each footfall.

He lowers his hand to his belt and —

His machete is gone.

The realization washes over him in a rush of cold, nauseous dread; it must have slipped from his belt, could be lying anywhere for all he knows. 

A grunt sounds out, drawing his attention to the fence. A dark figure climbs awkwardly through it, and he knows if he had his weapon he would be at an advantage — catch them unaware, and drag the blade of it across their throat before they have the chance to retaliate. Unarmed and unprepared, however, there isn’t much he can do.

He twists, throwing himself into the sludge at his feet, and crawls between the legs of a nearby brahmin.

The smell is unfathomably repulsive: manure, damp hides and spoiled milk. The brahmin under which he has sought refuge stirs and gives a plaintive call, and barely feet away he can hear the slick sound of boot-clad feet tramping through the same mud he found himself wading through previously.

On hands and knees, Arthur moves beneath the brahmin, shuddering in disgust as their distended bellies brush against his head and shoulders. He has dealt with far worse; he pushes onward.

The Brotherhood soldier — Initiate or Knight or Paladin, all equally deadly to him when he is unarmed — has the luxury of taking the more civilized path around the beasts of burden, and occasionally Arthur can hear the thud of the butt of a rifle against a broad flank as the soldier nudges the beasts out of their way.

He’s so intent on the person coming ever closer behind him that he doesn’t notice another set of feet ahead of him until it’s almost too late. He freezes; this newcomer is already on their way, although Arthur doesn’t think he’s been seen.

His options are limited: he knows he could make a break for cover now, while the two soldiers have yet to pinpoint his location, but there’s still the sniper to account for. He hasn’t heard gunfire in a while — it’s unlikely that the sniper has forgotten about him, which leads him to believe he’s still being hunted through a scope.

He won’t get anywhere on hands and knees; he shuffles back beneath one brahmin, then a second, and when he finds a gap, he rises to his feet. With any good fortune in his favor won’t be visible to the sniper amid the tawny coats of the cattle — at least not until the sun has fully risen.

Ever aware of the soldiers attempting to flank him, he heads off at an angle to loop back around the first. It’s slow going; if he startles the brahmin, their reactions will give up his location almost immediately. Carefully, steadily, he slips between their bodies, brushing his mud-caked hands over their coats to calm them as he goes.

He wonders if he’ll die here, among the stench of unwashed cattle.

When he thinks he’s given himself enough of a head start, he stops and listens. The Brotherhood soldiers aren’t as painstaking as he is — the brahmin complain as their rest is disturbed, and it’s easy for him to estimate where at least one of the soldiers is. They haven’t realized he’s changed direction yet; they’re still closing in on where he had been moments earlier.

He’s close enough to one of the brahmin that the head nearest him is almost at eye level; big, curled eyelashes flutter with interest as he passes by, while the other head pays him little heed. Once he’s around this beast he filters his way between the bodies, moving quicker now that he knows the soldiers aren’t being as cautious as he is.

He can see the back of a human head, just past the swatting tail of one of the brahmin. Taking each step slowly, steadying his breathing, he readies himself for a struggle.

It would all be so much easier if he had his machete; he knows he could wrestle the rifle from the soldier’s hands, but the scuffle itself and the sound of shooting would immediately draw the attention of anyone nearby.

He’ll have to rely on his hands.

The soldier — he sees the insignia of a Knight on their combat armor now, close as he is — still hasn’t noticed him. Each step seems to take an eternity and Arthur’s every sense is heightened, his ears tuned to any sounds he makes that might attract the enemy’s attention. When finally, graciously, he is behind the soldier, his heartbeat seems to still.

He knows the soldier could turn around at any moment, could end his life with a single pull of a trigger. Mars, however, must be smiling on him: his hands find their way home, and with a wrench the soldier’s neck twists at an impossible angle beneath his grip.

It’s a woman, he realizes as she wilts into his arms, her blonde hair neatly braided and tucked away under the collar of her armor. He feels no remorse.

Now for the matter of his other pursuer.

He lowers the body of the woman carefully to the ground and quickly pats her down, finding a knife at her ankle. He leaves the laser rifle — too cumbersome, with nowhere on his person to store it, and too noisy to be of much use tactically — and opts for the knife instead.

He’s barely standing again when a laser shot arcs just above his head. It misses him, but the brahmin behind him isn’t so lucky: the smell of singed meat, sweet and sickly, fills his nostrils as the beast brays in pain.

The sound sends the rest of the cattle into a panic and he is knocked to the ground, winded once again.

‘The bastard’s in here!’

He wishes he had taken the rifle now; a combat knife isn’t much good when the enemy knows exactly where you are. And yet — the frantic milling of the beasts around him provides him with somewhat of a reprieve, and he uses it to roll onto his front, crawling on his belly through the thick, stinking mud.

By some stroke of luck — he wonders if it’s divine intervention — the stomping of the cattle’s hooves manages to miss his head each time, and apart from a few clips to the torso, which will surely bruise, he makes his way out of the stampede mostly unscathed.

The fence is visible now, barely feet away, and he scrambles from a crawl to a stumbling run, all but diving through the gap in the fence. This time he hits the ground prepared, easily recovering his footing, and in the growing light of the dawn, he scouts around himself for a point of retreat.

He picks a direction and runs, and absently he is aware of laser shots and gunfire ringing out around him. One of the tents is close enough for him to touch when something hits him from the side as a shot explodes by his ear. 

He falls sideways, his head colliding with the dirt so hard everything goes white. When the shock dies down he realizes the weight of a man is on top of him, crushing him, and then the weight is gone. Before he can fully register what's happening the man hauls him to his feet and shoves him forward. 

‘Run,’ the man says, and Arthur can do little more than obey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lemme tell you a little something about myself: I _hate_ writing action sequences. Absolutely loathe it. If I can avoid them entirely, I do; otherwise I skim as best I can. This chapter was an attempt at actually writing the nitty-gritty of it, and I actually had a lot of fun pinning it down, even if it was exhausting to write.
> 
> I did most of it in one sitting and refused to let myself leave my computer until it was done, which probably helped somewhat — nothing hurts pacing worse than leaving in the middle of a paragraph full of action.
> 
> I hope it all makes sense, and that it's relatively easy to visualise. The most important thing for me to get down was the urgency of it, rather than the details: the sense that Arthur, for once in his life, is out of his depth. With any luck that came across as intended!


	18. XV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Regulus cracks, and shows a little bit of Arthur underneath.

_February 2290 — Ten Crows encampment — somewhere in the former state of Colorado_

His head throbs.

Every step he takes pounds through his skull, and when he brings tentative fingertips to his temple they come away slick with blood. He knows he’ll walk away with more than a handful of bruises, but better that than death.

His savior runs a few feet behind him, barking out instructions occasionally to turn or duck. It’s irritating to be told what to do but he’s grateful too, if a little grudgingly.

A hand grips his arm and tugs him sideways behind a tent; this time, mercifully, he remains on his feet.

‘I think we lost them,’ the man says.

Arthur’s chest burns from the exertion, but he keeps his movements dignified as he straightens out his torn, muddied tunic. He remembers, annoyingly, that his machete is long since gone. He’ll be given a new one when he returns to the encampment, but still — the combat knife looted from the Brotherhood Knight is a paltry replacement in the meantime.

The other man’s breathing is labored, his chest rising and falling heavily. Arthur permits himself a moment to study the one who saved his life.

He’s not a tribal; apart from the fact that he has spoken in unaccented English, he doesn’t carry himself like one of them. He is not armored like most of the other tribals Arthur has seen, and even in the dim dawn light the paler tone of his skin is clear to see. It strikes Arthur then, as he is studying this man’s face, that he has seen him before — has been almost intimately close to him in the midst of a fight.

‘The Ox.’

The words came to his lips unbidden; the Ox looks up at him in turn, and when their eyes meet Arthur sees uncertainty in the other man’s stare.

Arthur feels another flash of irritation — that this man of all people should have been barking commands at him, should have tackled him to the ground so hard that it left him bleeding. And yet: he might be dead if it weren’t for such an intervention.

Arthur opens his mouth — to thank him, to reprimand him, to say _something_ to acknowledge what just happened — but he closes it after a beat, his words left unsaid.

The Ox’s eyes narrow.

‘You should return to your people,’ he says. ‘The Ten Crows have this under control.’

Months earlier, this man was no better than cattle — fitted with a shock collar and made to do the Legion’s bidding. He had been given to the tribals as a gift: a commodity to be shared, no more, no less. Here he stands now, speaking to Arthur as an equal — as one man to another.

The thought of it rankles Arthur; his hands ball into fists, his heart thuds.

But then he thinks of River — of how she had seemed to be challenging him when she spoke of giving the Ox the task of training her warriors, of how she never really seemed to see the man as a slave. It makes it no easier to stomach the thought, but he knows what she would do if she were here now — knows that she would flash her amber eyes at him in warning.

He breathes slowly, levelly. Slowly his fists unclench.

‘I won’t leave until every last one of those profligates is wiped out,’ he replies, leaving no room for argument.

For a long, strained moment he thinks that he Ox might say more: the man is tense, his shoulders squared, and as they face each other as two men — hardly equals, but certainly on more level footing than their last encounter — Arthur can’t help but wonder what he’s thinking.

‘I understand,’ the Ox says.

Arthur’s shoulders sag. He doesn’t know what he was hoping for — conflict, perhaps: a rematch to the fight that left him with an ugly scar down the side of his face. Whatever it was, he isn’t going to get it.

They share another glance, and as much as Arthur might be sizing the Ox up, he gets the impression the other man is doing the same.

The Ox nods curtly; turns and goes, disappearing around the other side of the tent. Arthur can hear the crunch of his footfalls in the frost, muffled but hurried.

A cursory look about the place shows that Arthur is near the edge of the camp; not far from him he can see the Legion encampment, dwarfing that of the tribals. He wonders if the Ox’s path took them here intentionally.

In the hazy gray of the dawn, he can see the gates of the encampment are open, the torches outside it lit. From the entrance comes a procession of legionaries, a stream of red tunics and leather armor: reinforcements.

He doubts the tribals need them.

* * *

The Brotherhood didn’t send many soldiers, although those they did were among the better trained that Arthur has come across. All in all he counts twenty three bodies: Knights, mostly, with one Paladin. The Initiates were green enough that they were taken out with ease long before the true battle ever began.

Among the spoils: two sets of power armor, an assortment of laser rifles, and two Knights, hurt but alive.

Arthur watches legionaries lead the prisoners back to the encampment. They will be milked for information and, once their usefulness is depleted, they will be disposed of.

He knows he should return to the encampment with his comrades; at the very least he needs to bathe, to scrub away the caked-in dirt and blood. That will all have to wait.

He turns his back to his men and retreats deeper into the Ten Crows camp, searching the sea of triumphant tribals for River. He sees wounded among the warriors: pallid faces stained with blood, a few near-unconsciousness being helped along by their kin. He knows at least one tribal was killed in the battle, but for the most part they seem buoyed by their victory.

He spots a flash of crimson among the crush of tribals and makes for it, feeling the familiar tug in his chest as he goes.

River’s dress is torn at her midsection, the fabric darkened with blood. She seems unperturbed, stands laughing even now as she watches Kayla vividly recount a story, her hands making broad, expressive gestures. The girl speaks in the tribal tongue but even Arthur can guess at the meaning of her words — she’s telling them about the fighting.

When he’s close enough, River glances up and their eyes meet. Her expression darkens, and she leaves her people without a word.

She throws caution to the wind when she reaches his side, lifting her hands to his face and taking in the full extent of his injuries. With a featherlight touch she checks the wound at his temple, frowning all the while.

‘I didn’t know what happened to you,’ she says, and in her face he sees worry. ‘You were with us, then you were gone.’

He grabs her wrist to stop her fussing and her eyes come back to his. He feels her try to pull away, to snatch her hand back, but he slips his grip up until he’s clasping her hand, twining their fingers together.

‘You were worried about me,’ he says.

‘Of course I was.’

He feels the corners of his mouth twitch. This woman — this wild, untameable thing that he can’t even hope to understand — was _worried_ about him. Arthur Maxson, _Regulus_ , a favored decanus in the ranks of the Legion, and she was worried about him.

‘Are you smiling?’ she counters, and for a moment he thinks she’s angry until it strikes him that she’s surprised.

A half-nod, and then he brings her hand to his mouth and touches his lips to the back of it.

‘Were you worried about _me_?’ she asks, and that only makes him smile all the more.

‘Not at all.’

It pleases him more than it should that for once he is inscrutable to her, that he isn’t the one trying to unravel the fabric of her to understand what’s going on inside her head. The frustration on her face, the narrowed eyes and pursed lips, are a pleasure to see — for once, he has her confused.

He lets go of her and brings his hands to her face instead, her angular jaw fitting neatly in his palms, her perfect skin clashing with the dirt and blood on his own.

He ignores the prying eyes of the tribals around them and steps forward, pressing his lips to hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a search through the other chapters so far and couldn't find an instance of Arthur smiling, or smirking, or even sneering. Interestingly, River smiles the most out of any other character — it's probably fitting, then, that she's the reason we see Arthur smile for the first time.


	19. Interlude — Livia

_February 2290 — Legion encampment — somewhere in the former state of Colorado_

Arthur's tent is sparse and utilitarian — function over form. Here and there, however, there are little touches that hint at the presence of another: a silk throw of red and gold, a pincushion with needle and thread. An ornate mirror sits on the desk, antique silver glinting in the torchlight. 

Livia picks up the mirror again, studies her face anew as though she hasn't been obsessing over it. The milk-white of her cheeks is marred by pink now; the bottle of wine she's been helping herself to is considerably emptier than when she got here. 

Reports of the attack on the Ten Crows had spread through the encampment soon enough; legionary, slave and child alike were awoken before long, and those trained to fight were readied for combat. She had known before word got around that Arthur was absent from the encampment. She had shown up to confront him the night before only to find his tent empty.

Even a fool could have guessed where he was.

She presses a fingertip to her bottom lip and tugs at it absently as she looks her reflection over once more. She’s less polished now than she was the night before; her hair, so painstakingly washed and finger-curled, sits limply on her shoulders. Dark circles ring her eyes, contrasting starkly against the green of them.

She had it all planned out — how she would tempt him, remind him of how good they had always been together. It seems so childish now, knowing that he almost lost his life in the attack.

She waits — and waits, and waits.

When it seems she can’t stand it any more, the canvas flap of the tent rustles open and her head snaps towards the sound. He’s there: her Arthur, covered in dirt and blood. She can smell the sweat on his skin from where she sits.

He barely acknowledges her as he walks in, but she busies herself with her old duties — he allows her to help him out of his clothes and as his tunic falls away, the bruises on his skin are plain to see.

He leaves her side and makes his way toward the metal tub, still filled with water from whenever he last bathed. Without her, of course.

‘I can fetch hot water,’ she says. She can’t remember the last time she spoke with him like this — like a servant to her master.

He shakes his head, weary but not wholly impatient.

‘Just help me get clean.’

The cold water does little to help wash the filth from Arthur’s body, but Livia scrubs diligently. She feels herself slipping back into the rhythm of days gone by, her hands remembering the motions long before her mind does. Her fingers find the familiar knots in his muscles, easing the tension from them; soon he relaxes beneath her touch.

It could be a normal day months earlier, if not for the vivid crimson at his temple, dried now and matted stubbornly into his hair.

_He could have died._

If she were anyone else, she might weep. Even now she can feel the tightness in her throat, the sting in her eyes. Her hands falter as they work across his shoulders and she feels him tense, twisting to try to face her.

‘Sit still,’ she murmurs, using her grip to keep him in place.

She won’t cry for him — for what might have been. She knows he was never really hers to lose.

‘Livia,’ he says.

There’s something more to it: she can hear it in the catch of his voice. She waits for him to finish his thought, but it never comes.

She imagines she can smell a hint of perfume on him, cloying and achingly familiar, but it’s gone before she can be sure.

‘This really would be easier if you let me go boil some fresh water,’ she says.

When he shakes his head, her fingers brush through the strands of his hair, still thick with dirt but just the same as she remembers. The images flood her head, uninvited and unwelcome: her fingers twisting through his hair as he nuzzled between her legs; his eyes, dark with lust, staring up at her.

Her tongue darts out to wet her lips of its own volition; she allows herself a heartbeat to remember the feel of his mouth on her and then, graciously, the moment is gone.

‘I heard what happened,’ she says, and she does her best — but fails — to keep the bitterness from her voice.

_It’s a long way to fall from lover of an up-and-coming decanus to a discarded whore._

‘The Brotherhood,’ he says, flatly.

His voice is hoarse; how she wishes she could kiss his throat, to soothe the tension away. Instead, she turns away and bustles about the tent, finding fresh towels and setting them aside. With his back to her, his broad shoulders dwarfing the tub, she can imagine his expression without seeing it. More than that — it’s etched into her thoughts, and she thinks she knows his face better than her own.

‘They were only after the tribals?’

He nods in response; twists just slightly and allows her to see his face in profile.

‘They sent a vertibird to scout,’ he says. Professional. Distant. ‘They underestimated our allies.’

She resumes her earlier work, and he closes his eyes as she goes about it. With time, she untangles the snarls from his hair and cleanses the worst of the blood and dirt from him; when he eventually climbs from the tub, the water runs in murky rivulets down his body.

‘Fetch me a clean tunic,’ he commands.

She could argue that it would be pointless when he’s still far from clean himself, but she bites her tongue and does as he bids. When she returns to his side with the garment in hand, he takes it from her grasp without so much as a glance at her.

He dresses in silence; as she sets about tidying, she watches him from the corner of her eye.

‘I’ve been thinking about what you said.’

She freezes, her hands poised to scoop water from the tub to empty it. She doesn’t know what he means — not immediately, anyway — but she has a feeling it’s nothing good.

‘I spoke to Tullius,’ he continues, and to her his tone seems conversational. ‘About you.’

It worms its way down her throat into her stomach: a cold, slick sensation like a mouthful of oil. She goes about her task as calmly and mechanically as she can, but as she carries a pail of water across the tent she finds her hands shaking with more than the exertion.

‘Oh?’

She doesn’t wait for him to explain himself; she slips outside and tips the water out on the ground, hardly taking care not to let it splash the tent. She won’t keep him waiting long — of all the times for her particular brand of sullen rebellion, this isn’t one of them — but for the brief moment she has, she grips at her dress to steady herself and takes a long, deep breath.

The walls of the tent close in on her as she makes her way back inside. Her eyes find his face and he looks impatient, and she expects — almost hopes — that he will lash out at her.

His voice is cold when he speaks, so cold it cuts to the bone.

‘I think you could be happy with him.’

What she hears: _I don’t need you any more._

She remembers it now — her plea to him, half-desperation and half-anger, to make up his mind. She had thought that she still stood a chance against River then, but even though she knows better now she can’t help but feel dizzy to hear the confirmation from his own tongue.

It isn’t about her being happy; it’s a platitude, nothing more.

‘I understand,’ she says. _Better than you know._

It’s a credit to the women who took her into their fold at the beginning — who taught her how best to please the men of the Legion, and in doing so to secure her survival — that she keeps calm as she finishes clearing up. She hardly notices that Arthur hasn’t moved from where he stands as she puts the last few things back in their rightful place.

‘You’re to go to him tomorrow night,’ he says. ‘Valeria will help you prepare.’

She looks at him then, finally: allows herself a moment to meet his eye and search, fruitlessly, for any sign of hesitance — of regret. She could always read him better than most, but his thoughts this time elude her.

Swallowing, Livia crosses the room until she’s in front of him. He towers over her, as he did the first time they met. Back then he had seemed shy to her, uncertainty hidden away in bristling reticence. Now she wonders if she had it all wrong — if she ever truly knew him at all.

She lifts a hand and presses it to his chest, above his heart; she tries her best to ignore the memory of the nights she spent listening to the soothing rhythm of his heartbeat.

‘You’ll go far,’ she says. ‘I always knew you would. I’d hoped when you chose me as your own that you might take me along with you, but I guess I was wrong.’

He opens his mouth but she lifts her other hand, pressing her fingers to his lips.

‘It’s an honor to be chosen by the centurion,’ she continues. ‘And I assume I have you to thank for that. I’m grateful.’

She lets her fingers drop from his lips — fills their absence with a kiss, stretching up on tiptoe to bridge the distance between them. His mouth yields to hers, as she had been terrified it wouldn’t, but somehow that makes her heart ache all the more.

‘Everything I’ve done, I did for you,’ she says. Before he can reply, she turns to go.

As an afterthought, she spares a glance around the room for anything she might be leaving behind. Her clothes are in a trunk in the portion of the women’s pavilion that she calls her own; they had once had a tentative home in Arthur’s tent, neatly folded in a corner, but she had returned them to their place amongst her belongings when he stopped summoning her.

Her eyes pass over the few effects of hers that have left a personal touch on an otherwise unhomely place — when they land on the mirror she moves to it and picks it up, clutching it to her chest as she leaves.

It was a gift from Arthur: an unexpected token of his affection, before he had claimed her for his own — the only thing in her possession worth keeping.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've known since River first stepped onto the scene that this was coming, and yet it didn't make it any easier to write.
> 
> Arthur's doing this for Livia's sake, right? That means he really cares about her in spite of it all, right??
> 
> Artivia 4ever :(


	20. Halloween Special — I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's that time of year, folks: pumpkins and cosy sweaters and costumes! 
> 
> I thought it'd be remiss of me not to contribute something to the fandom on this wonderful holiday, and so rather than rely on on the more obvious option (Sinew), I thought I'd take it as an opportunity to get a little spooky with this monster of a saga, instead. 
> 
> Here's part 1: enjoy!

_February 2290 — caravan trade route — somewhere in the former state of Colorado_

The winter is dwindling; Arthur can feel it in the bright, sun-warm days as he and Varius walk side by side with the other members of the caravan. When spring comes in, the Legion’s advantage over the Brotherhood will be gone.

He feels an urgency that no one else seems to share — not Varius, and certainly not the caravaneers, who stop for long stretches to eat and thaw their limbs by a fire.

If he had his way, he would have long since left the caravan behind. Varius was all too quick to remind him that they're crucial to the plan.

 _The plan._ What barely passes for one.

It’s dusk; reluctantly, he agrees to stop for the night with the others. He could argue that there’s still enough scant light by which to make their way, but he knows it would fall on unhearing ears.

Varius helps him assemble the ugly sheet of brahmin leather and assortment of wooden struts that make up their tent — borrowed from the tribals, with promises of returning them to their rightful owner. He dreads staring up at the roof of their makeshift shelter even now; though they’ve only spent a few nights beneath it, he has committed the myriad stains and tears to memory.

‘Nina Cavanaugh said she spotted geckos in the area on her last time through,’ Varius says. It’s companionable, his words free of the clipped formality of Legion speech. ‘She invited us to go hunt with her later, if you’re looking for something to keep you sharp.’

The refusal is on Arthur’s lips, reflexive and full of venom, when it crosses his mind that it might not be such a bad idea. They haven’t been able to engage in their usual training — even he doesn’t need to be one of the frumentarii to know how suspicious that would be — and days of endless walking have left his muscles stiff and sore. A hunt, even if it’s just for geckos, might serve as a useful exercise for them both.

‘All right.’

Varius smiles.

‘Good,’ he says. ‘I’ll let her know.’

* * *

There are four of them — Arthur and Varius, and Nina and her twin brother Lee. Although not identical, the siblings are hard to tell apart at times: matching jaw-length black hair, freckled cheeks and bright green eyes.

They’re not far from the camp when Arthur begins to wonder how long Nina has had feelings for Varius; from the brief introductions his companion gave at the beginning, he knows they have travelled together before, and she was the one who vouched for them to tag along with the caravan.

She stares just a little too long at him sometimes, and laughs just a little too hard at his jokes. Arthur doesn’t think Varius has noticed.

‘Gecko hide’ll fetch you a decent price,’ Nina explains, pausing to glance back and make sure they aren’t lagging behind. ‘It’s durable, but the little bastards can be tricky so there aren’t many willing to put in the legwork themselves to hunt ‘em down.’

Varius nods along as though interested; Arthur attempts to do the same, although it’s tedious work pretending he’s new to the wasteland. Varius’s backstory, and the one extended to him in turn, is that they fled the NCR to avoid conscription; the creature comforts of the Republic are nothing compared to years of grueling training at the hands of the Legion.

‘Gecko meat ain’t bad, either,’ Lee adds. ‘If you don’t mind picking it outta your teeth for days after.’

‘Sure make a change from two-hundred-year-old Cram,’ Varius replies.

There’s a look between the two men — so subtle Arthur almost misses it, but there nonetheless. When Varius catches him watching, he promptly glances away. Even in the light of the moon, the pink of his cheeks all but glows.

Nina leads them along a serpentine trail that winds up the side of a hill. Gradually her pace slows and she raises a hand to cover her mouth in an exaggerated gesture to silence the group. Nearby, Arthur can hear the telltale squeaks and trills made by the geckos.

His muscles remember the thrill of the hunt — reflex kicks in and he finds himself stilling, slowing his breath and, with it, his heart rate. A few feet away Varius does the same and Arthur catches the slightest of movements as his companion’s hand slips downward to the knife at his hip.

He knows the geckos would be no match for them, garbed in Legion armor and brandishing their machetes; this is a different kind of hunt, relying on skill rather than strength.

Arthur’s mind drifts to the attack on the NCR and the bloodletting that followed: silent footfalls and the quiet hiss of a slashed artery.

Adrenaline begins to course through him and he wills himself to breathe through it, focusing his gaze on Varius’s hand as his fingers work open the catch of his knife belt and slip his blade free. Varius palms the knife and stills once more, but Arthur can see his thumb working over the handle of it. He knows without seeing that there’s a crudely etched eagle on its surface, a subtle homage to the standard of their centuria.

Nina’s gesturing to them again; she slowly lifts her hand and points in the direction they came from, where Arthur sees the wobbling, disjointed gait of a gecko.

As one, he and Varius sink slowly to a crouch. Their legs are trained for this — hours of lying in hiding in all manner of awkward and uncomfortable positions, sometimes anticipating a signal that never comes. He knows they could wait like this for hours if needed, ignoring the burn of soured lactic acid in their limbs.

They don’t wait long; the gecko draws within arm’s reach and Varius lunges, driving his knife between its ribs and into its heart.

It’s only a small creature — but where there are young there are mothers.

Arthur doesn’t wait for Varius to lower the carcass to the ground; he stays low and moves toward Nina, following as she and Lee advance toward the rest of the geckos. With another hand signal they branch off, the Cavanaughs taking one flank while Arthur and Varius approach the other.

For caravaneers, the siblings aren’t unskilled — they move with grace likely bred by years of hunting, raised to fend for themselves. The geckos eventually startle, as animals inevitably do, but by then they’ve taken down a handful of the creatures.

An oversized one — big even by mutated standards, rushes Arthur and he grapples with it, holding tight to the frills behind its head as leverage to avoid its snapping mouth. It hisses into his face, its breath foul, but then — stillness. The slitted eyes above his own go dead and glassy and the gecko tilts, falling away from him.

‘Need a hand?’ Varius asks. His arm is outstretched, offering his palm.

When Arthur refuses the help and clambers to his feet, Varius wrenches the blade free of the gecko’s body.

They count seven carcases in all — one of the brood managed to escape, although Arthur imagines it won’t last long on its own without a mother to dissuade predators. Weighted down with their kills, they turn back for camp, Arthur grudgingly sharing the burden of the brood mother with whom he wrestled earlier.

Varius exchanges banter with the siblings with such ease that Arthur wonders how they ever could have come from the same beginnings. That’s the mark of the frumentarii, however — an instinct for blending in. Varius has scarcely completed his training and already he’s a natural.

Arthur trails along in silence, deflecting any attempts at interaction with terse grunts by way of response. Nina and Lee soon learn not to bother.

The light of the caravan campfire comes into view, casting the tents in silhouette. He can pick out the shape of the tent he and Varius share, can already smell the musty, mildew-speckled hides that serve as his bedding. He knows the other caravaneers will probably be sitting around the fire, sharing a bottle of bootleg alcohol and exchanging increasingly hyperbolic tales of their travels.

Closer now, he can see that the usual spots around the fire are empty; the flames still burn merrily, however, and the smell of the broth heating over it fills the air.

He halts: the gecko carcass lurches as Varius takes a step ahead of him and then realizes he has stopped. His companion turns to look at him, curious, but Arthur is already dropping the gecko and reaching for his pistol.

As he nears the camp he feels the creep of phantom spider-legs on his neck. The place is too quiet — apart from the occasional snort of the pack brahmin, there’s only silence.

The flickering of the campfire takes on an unreal quality the closer he gets; it casts shadows that could be figures passing by the edge of his vision.

His boot scuffs against something. He stoops and finds a tin cup there; the contents have spilled onto the ground, dark coffee still steaming hot.

Nearby, there's a sharp intake of breath.

‘They're gone.’

Varius stands across the fire, a rifle in his hand. Arthur recognizes it — one of the caravan guards must have left it behind.

He rises, moves around the fire to Varius. They stand like that, side by side in silence, until the crunch of boots on dirt approaches them. Nina. Just as nonplussed as they are.

‘Old Mollie’s still here,’ she says. ‘Everything she’s loaded with, too.’  
It’s enough to put his initial suspicion from his mind — there aren’t many who would leave a pack animal loaded down with wares behind — but at his side, Varius voices it anyway: ‘Raiders?’

Even without considering the brahmin, it doesn’t sit right; where’s the blood, the spent ammo cases? Surely at least one of the caravaneers wouldn’t have gone without a fight.

He glances up at Varius and finds the man looking at him already. His companion’s brow is furrowed. Raiders would be easily handled; this feels different.

‘Hey, guys!’

Three sets of eyes look for the source of the shout; when Varius’s gaze lands on Lee he takes off at a jog to reach him. From where he stands Arthur can only tell that Lee is showing Varius something, but whatever it is he can’t tell. When Varius’s face darkens he knows it’s nothing good.

They stand behind the tent that belonged to one of the caravan guards: a scarred, weathered man missing so many teeth — either knocked out forcefully, or rotten from chem misuse — that Arthur never quite caught his name. As he nears them he sees that Lee has his torch aimed at something not readily visible from far away.

A little closer and it’s clear there’s something written there, etched into the film of dirt on the wall of the tent.

One word, solitary and inscrutable: AMY.


	21. Halloween Special — II

_February 2290 — caravan trade route — somewhere in the former state of Colorado_

The boys Arthur trained alongside when he was first captured used to tell ghosts stories at night, when they were supposed to be asleep; anyone caught indulging in such a practice was savagely beaten, but still the tradition persisted. Arthur used to hate it; it reminded him too much of the world he left behind. Young men training to join the ranks of the legionaries weren’t supposed to be scared of anything.

He wonders now if any of the boys he has trained since becoming decanus could be found telling those same stories, jumping at the same cues. He wonders if he would be afraid now, if he hadn’t learned that there was little more frightening than a hardened legionary.

The Cavanaughs are scared — at least, Lee is, visibly. Nina does her best to hide it, and Arthur might believe it if not for the slight tremble of her hands as she lays out a dog-eared map by the light of the fire, weighting down its edges with rocks.

‘We’re here,’ she says, prodding her finger into a nondescript patch of wasteland.

Internally, Arthur records where they are in relation to the Legion encampment. He’s a little less disappointed with their progress now, having seen it in ink, yet he can’t help but eye the boundary of the Brotherhood’s territories with bated breath.

‘We were hunting out this way,’ she adds, with a tap of the map a little to the east. ‘Only thing west of here is Denver, and nobody’s going there in a hurry.’

Arthur recognizes the name — the site of one of the Legion’s many conquests. The city itself was abandoned to the wild dogs, of little use to Caesar.

‘Anywhere else you think they’d head?’ Varius asks.

Nina sighs.

‘Couple towns they could’ve gone to, I guess. If they were smart, they would’ve kept along the trade route — but there’s no sign of them.’

Arthur’s eyes haven’t left the map, poring over its topography and absorbing the names and places. He has already spied a mark denoting the old site of the Legion encampment, long since dismantled; he wonders how old Nina’s information is, how it matches up with the maps in the Brotherhood’s war rooms.

East, further than they went on their hunt, he spots an X marked in black, overlined a number of times.

‘What’s that?’

Nina seems surprised to hear him speak; he doesn’t need to glance up to know that she’s staring at him.

‘Deathclaw nest.’

Nearby, Lee flinches; Arthur hears the rustle of fabric as Varius puts a hand on his shoulder.

‘You don’t think that’s what happened, do you?’ Varius asks. He does a convincing job of sounding worried.

‘They would’ve had to pass us along the way,’ Nina replies. ‘Something tells me we’re not so lucky that they wouldn’t run into us first.’

Arthur shakes his head: much like the Raiders, it seems unlikely.

‘The place is too neat,’ he says. ‘If they were attacked, everything wouldn’t be set up like it was when we left.’

He makes the mistake of looking up; the others are all watching him expectantly, and even Varius’s eyes seem to demand an explanation.

‘So what happened?’ Lee prompts.

Arthur shrugs.

‘I don’t see anyone around who could tell us.’

* * *

In the absence of compelling evidence as to what transpired, they elect to spend the night at the camp. It’s more than apparent that the thought of it makes Lee uncomfortable, but Nina is a pragmatist — Arthur is grateful that she seems to be the leader of the two.

Arthur offers to take first watch; he doesn’t trust the Cavanaughs to be able to defend them should it come to it, and he uses the opportunity to study Nina’s map in peace, committing unfamiliar details to memory.

The air is bitter tonight, so much so that he almost wishes he had taken Varius up on his offer of taking the first shift. Instead he sits huddled by the fire with his moth-eaten jacket fastened close about him, no company but the pistol in his hand.

Not long after it seems everyone is asleep, he hears the whisper of a tent flap being opened. He doesn’t bother to greet Lee as he emerges, but his eyes follow as the man crosses the camp to the tent Arthur usually shares with Varius.

For a while afterwards he can hear their voices — hushed, but not quiet enough to escape his hearing. He hears them discuss their theories about what happened, and what they should do as a group come morning. To Arthur, Varius seems unconcerned: he was one of the boys beaten for sharing ghost stories at night, but he has long since outgrown believing in phantoms.

‘What I don’t get,’ he hears Lee say, and there’s a pause and the sloshing sound of a bottle being swigged from, ‘is what “Amy” was supposed to mean.’

Varius doesn’t answer right away; there’s another sloshing sound, then a slight cough. The bottle thuds down on the ground, probably more forcefully than intended.

‘A message for someone?’ Varius suggests. His voice sounds a little slurred; Arthur wonders how much of it is an act. ‘I don’t know. What does it matter, anyway?’

Arthur knows he shouldn’t eavesdrop, yet he shifts just slightly so that he can hear better. His eyes have neglected the map, instead studying the dim form of the tent, lit up softly by a lamp within.

A sigh; he can’t tell who it comes from.

‘Never mind,’ Lee says. ‘Let’s just get some rest.’

The lamp goes out, and there’s a shuffling sound as the two move about in the tent. Arthur watches for Lee to leave, but he never does.

Slowly his attention returns to the map and, when that fails to hold his attention for long, he takes off on foot to patrol the camp and restore some warmth to his limbs. He listens for sounds that warn him of impending danger, but he finds the rhythm of the camp undisturbed: Nina’s soft breathing, the brahmin stirring restlessly.

Sometimes, below the low howl of the wind, he thinks he can still hear the men’s voices, softer now — and yet more urgent. He trains his ears on something — anything — else, but he can’t quite ignore the little cry that rings out before the voices fall silent once more.

* * *

He awakens with a foul taste in his mouth and pain shooting through his back; with a sickening lurch, he realizes that he fell asleep on watch. He sits up quickly to assess the extent of the damage, if there is any, and finds his eyes gritty. He wipes at them with the edge of his sleeve and the material comes away stained red with dirt. It’s chalky — more like dust. When he glances about himself he sees that the camp is covered in it, too.

In one fluid motion he climbs to his feet and strides to his tent; with little care for privacy he yanks the flap aside and finds Varius and Lee asleep, burrowed under the blankets and huddled together for warmth.

‘Varius,’ he begins, catching himself too late; the pair stirs, and he does his best to avoid looking at the glint of bare skin.

He tries again: ‘Ryan.’

This time they hear him in earnest; it’s a credit to Varius’s training that he recognises his supplied name immediately, and although he awakens with the haste and alertness of a true legionary, when he turns and shakes Lee awake it’s with a gentle touch.

‘What time is it?’ Varius asks. Although he addresses Arthur, he’s doing an artful job of avoiding looking him in the eye.

Arthur glances out at the sky; through a tumultuous blanket of cloud cast in gray and silver, he can see a hint of sunlight. Judging by the hazy, dreamlike quality of the light, he thinks the sun isn’t long risen.

‘Late enough.’

He lets the tent flap fall closed; leaves them to their moment in privacy.

Baths aren’t a luxury afforded to those on the caravan route, and he sorely misses the old copper tub in his tent back at the encampment as he scrubs his hand over his dirt-encrusted beard. There’ll be time enough for bathing when he returns, and he lets the thought of it warm him as he stretches his legs and makes a lap of the camp.

The name is still there, on the caravan guard’s shelter; he can see now that it was daubed in the strange red dust coating everything, and it’s fainter now — partly concealed by a fresh coat of the stuff. He stares at it a long while, trying to make sense of it as Varius had with Lee the night before. He’s no closer now in the light of day.

He coughs, hoarse and husky. The dust rattles in his chest and he doubles over, hacking until it comes up in his throat, thick and caustic. Nausea washes over him as he spits onto the dirt underfoot and he stays there awhile, knees bent and head held in his hands, until the weakness passes.

The sounds of bickering float across the crisp air, intermingled with hushed laughter. With a scowl, he straightens up and puts his back to the camp, finding a spot to relieve himself without being disturbed.

In the daylight — feeble though it is — the mystery of the night before has lost some of its witchery. He knows there’s a mundane answer to it all; knows that he can’t afford to wait around while the Cavanaughs attempt to unravel it.

People vanish in the wasteland all the time: get lost, killed, run away.

He puts it out of his head.

Nearby the sassafras are dormant, but the smell is still alluring. He snaps a twig free and pops it between his teeth, chewing as he heads back for camp.

‘We need to get moving,’ he says, spitting the twig out as he regroups with Varius. ‘I’m not wasting any more time here.’

Varius has that look — the one where he’s torn between duty and whichever misguided sense of chivalry motivates him today. Arthur knows it so well because it’s gotten them both into trouble on more than a few occasions.

‘That wasn’t a suggestion.’

Varius glances away; his eyes fall, predictably, onto Lee where he shovels some of the cold broth from the night before into his mouth, skin and all. He moves about unselfconsciously, oblivious to the legionaries watching him with very different thoughts in mind. When Varius eventually — reluctantly — looks back, Arthur grips him by the wrist.

‘Remember why we’re here,’ he hisses, through gritted teeth. ‘Our priority is the mission.’

There’s irritation in Varius’s eyes, then scorn. He could shake Arthur’s grasp off if he so chose, but he doesn’t. Instead he uses it as leverage to move closer, so that when he speaks softly Arthur doesn’t miss a word.

‘If you’re telling me not to get distracted, you should look a little closer to home.’

Arthur realizes he’s tightening his hold on Varius’s wrist only when the man’s breath cuts sharply from his lips. He hangs on a beat longer, gives a warning squeeze, then shoves his hand away.

‘We’re leaving.’

He deplores the waver in his voice, the jangling nerves that he now swallows down, bitter and sharp.

Varius’s lips are curled in a sneer as he walks away.

* * *

They linger too long; Lee is convinced that the others will somehow show up again, and Nina is quick to coddle him. By noon the Cavanaughs seem no closer to coming to a decision and Arthur’s patience is wearing thin.

They eat in sullen silence. Old Mollie gives a plaintive moan from time to time, and the incessant rhythm of the day begins to grate on Arthur — the ceaseless hum of insects, and the scrape of weathered forks against aluminum bowls.

He sets his food aside irritably and the bowl topples over, spilling the same rancid broth out that he’s been eating for days. With a huff, he strides across the camp and out into the wastes, far enough from the others to think in peace.

It isn’t long before his thoughts are interrupted; footsteps approach behind him, and he inspects it to be Varius. Instead, it’s Nina.

She doesn’t simper when she speaks to him, doesn’t bat her eyelashes and appear frail and subservient. Would she, if she only knew who he really was?

‘I don’t know what you’ve got waiting for you at the end of this run,’ she says, ‘but I get that you’re itching to get a move on.’

Arthur flicks his glance over her face. Up close, there are little things that set her apart from her brother — the set of her jaw, the way her nose turns up just slightly at the tip. She would fetch a high price among slavers; together with her brother, she would be worth even more to the right bidder.

He tips his head just so: agreement, a prompt to continue.

‘Lee’s always been a little too optimistic for his own good,’ she says after a while, and there’s a ghost of a wistful smile behind her words. ‘It kinda fell to me to be the realist.’

‘Your friends aren’t coming back.’

He’s blunt, and it comes as no surprise when her lips purse and her eyes harden in response. Still — she lowers her head in resignation.

‘I know. Much as I’d like to think they just went for a stroll, I’m not an idiot.’

He turns away; for a while she stands behind him without uttering a word before the crunch of her boots signals her departure.

An hour later they’re packing to go.

Whatever it took on Nina’s part to convince Lee to leave, Arthur doesn’t care. The sooner they’re on their way, the better.


	22. Halloween Special — III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had planned for this little tangent to be done by now, but I started to have too much fun with it. 
> 
> Expect to be back to your regularly scheduled programming soon!

_February 2290 — caravan trade route — somewhere in the former state of Colorado_

With several fewer pairs of legs to grow weary and with Nina leading the way, they make good progress. She pushes on well past dusk and Arthur finds himself impressed with her resilience; alone, she might have continued late into the night.

They set up camp with a little more care this time, choosing the depression of a river bed and eschewing the fire. There are still no convincing theories as to what happened to the caravaneers, but Arthur notes the others are as reluctant as he is to bring undue attention upon themselves.

The river has long since dried up, but the greenery sprouting through its cracked surface hints at moisture far below. For the first time, Arthur is thirsty — he feels it like an itch that can’t be scratched, and even his daily ration of water, gulped gritty and warm from the confines of his canteen, isn’t enough to slake it.

And the cold: the cold gnaws at his bones like a rabid dog. When Nina appears an hour into his watch that night, he’s only too glad to let her take over.

He barely makes it into his tent, realizing with delay that he doesn’t know what he might be stumbling upon. Varius, however, is alone; his blond hair is barely visible, buried away beneath his blankets as he is.

Arthur sheds his jacket and his shoes before slipping under the stinking layers of brahmin skin that make up his bed. A foot away, Varius barely stirs.

* * *

The cold rouses him. It might be hours later, it might only be minutes. His teeth chatter and he feels the bundle of blankets and weary bones beside him tremble in turn.

In the time between wakefulness and sleep they huddle together, a memory from a time years earlier: desperate limbs threading through one another in a futile search for heat.

When Varius nestles his face against his neck, Arthur finds he doesn’t have the energy to care.

The heat of his companion’s breath on his skin is enough to lull him to sleep — still bitterly, bitterly cold, but warm enough to make it through the night.

* * *

His head is foggy when morning comes, his whole body rigid and aching from a night of turbulent rest. Varius wears a frown in his sleep, his hair sticking up all over. Arthur leaves him be and dons his outer clothes before slipping out of the tent.

The sun hasn’t quite come up; a haze hangs over everything in the half-light, and Arthur’s breath fogs in front of his face. He doesn’t venture far to relieve himself, hurrying as much as he can to preserve his body heat.

He wishes for the campfire now, as much as his training tells him he shouldn’t need it. He longs too for the sweltering, dizzying heat of River’s tent, and the tangy scent of the teas she makes for him on days such as this.

She’s probably still asleep, her perfumed hair spilling about her on her pillow. He’d chop off a finger to see her now, to feel the heat of her languid body against him.

Nina’s not at her post when he returns to camp, and through the murk of exhaustion, hunger and cold he can’t even be sure he saw her on his way out. She probably went to bed before dawn to escape the elements; he’d be irritated if he hadn’t fallen asleep during his own watch the night before.

He gives the others an extra hour of sleep, using the time to indulge in drills. His body protests against the exertion and his lungs burn in the frigid air, but he feels better for it. Once he’s finished, he jogs a few laps around the camp.

The tents are covered in red dust again this morning; it's easy to miss, until the sun hits it at the right angle and it glimmers uncannily.

He stops behind his tent and leans against one of the struts, catching his breath. It's only been a few days and it already feels like his body is weak. He pushes through it.

Varius is up first out of the others; he begins the process of dismantling their tent, and when Arthur joins him neither says a word of the night before.

Lee greets them before long as they heat up food and coffee over a low fire, and it’s easy to see the night took its toll on him: hair unkempt, eyes sunken and face drawn, he’s the picture of exhaustion.

‘I’m about ready for it to be spring,’ he says, terse and gravel-voiced.

While he rubs the sleep from his eyes, Varius brings him a tin mug of coffee and presses it into his hands. Arthur can’t help but look, his eyes drawn by the movement, and he watches as Varius’s fingers stay just a few heartbeats longer than they have to. When Varius glances up he looks away, busying himself with tending to the food.

‘Nina said she was gonna skin the geckos on watch last night,’ Lee says, between sips. ‘I think we could use some protein for once.’

Even Arthur’s stomach pangs at the thought of real meat for dinner, but he sets the thought aside for later. There are other, more pressing matters to attend to — namely getting to their destination.

The can of beans scalds his fingertips as he lifts it from the fire but he ignores it, serving the contents onto three dishes. He half-listens to the other men’s soft voices while he works and wonders hazily if this is what it’s always like for people on the road.

Back at the encampment, his men will have long since begun their morning drills, but he knows that they will be bathed and clad in clean armor and tunics. Once training is over, they will fill their bellies with a diet rich in nutrients to keep them going for the day. He hasn’t worn clean clothes since venturing out with Varius, and even the few days they’ve had of rationed food has been enough to leave him drained.

He wouldn’t call this feeling sympathy, but it’s something akin to pity — pity for those who have no greater aspirations than putting food on the table after each long, thankless day. Pity for the mouths that will go unfed when the Legion conquers the Brotherhood.

To voice such things aloud would be treason.

‘You need to wake Nina up,’ he says, blunt.

The conversation cuts off; out of the corner of his eye, he sees Lee’s head snap up to look at him. He expects confrontation, refusal, but when he turns his glare on the man he finds it met by wide eyes.

‘She’s not asleep,’ Lee says. ‘I thought she was covering your watch.’

Lee’s words have barely registered before he jumps up, knocking his coffee and a canteen in the process. Arthur has scarcely enough time to dodge Lee’s elbow swinging by his head as he takes off at a run.

Arthur is in no mood to follow, but Varius has other plans — he watches his companion scramble to his feet, deftly stepping over the mess Lee left behind, and with a reluctant sigh he grips Varius’s hand and allows him to pull him up.

When they first joined up with the caravan, their borrowed tent brought the total up to a round ten. Now there are only two left — their own, and the one shared by the Cavanaughs. The camp is far smaller now and yet Lee tears it apart as though there are countless hiding places, checking each tent twice before hunting around the gaunt trees that sit to either side of the riverbed.

‘Lee!’ Varius calls, but his voice has little effect.

They follow him north up the old path of the stream. Here and there they can see impressions in the dirt — faint footprints beside Lee’s fresher, heavier ones.

They’re still in view of camp when Lee stops and bends down, picking something up.

Varius reaches him first. He approaches tentatively, pauses when Lee turns to him. Arthur can see what’s in the man’s hand from here, and it’s enough to halt him in his tracks.

It’s a woman’s boot.


	23. Halloween Special — IV

_February 2290 — caravan trade route — somewhere in the former state of Colorado_

Lee is red-eyed and silent.

The boot was Nina’s, or so he seems to believe; Arthur doesn’t much care about the truth when Lee’s search northward takes them along their original route. After Lee made himself hoarse calling his sister’s name, Varius only just convinced him to return to pack up the camp. They’ve been going for hours now without a break.

Varius’s worry is palpable. He doesn’t need to voice his thoughts aloud for Arthur to know he presumes the worst.

Their journey is morose now, hours of fraught silence broken only by braying interjections from Old Mollie. Arthur almost misses the boisterous chatter of the caravaneers as they traded tall tales. Even amongst the Legion, where idle banter is frowned upon, the day-to-day sounds of training, of hard labor, seem a colorful world of noise in comparison.

More than ever, he misses River’s tent and the hum of the tribals’ lives going on outside it.

They move from barren plains to wastes dotted with skeletal trees; the mountains ahead, once a mere bump on the horizon, begin to loom before them. Arthur knows they’ll reach the Brotherhood stronghold soon, knows that once their mission here is complete, they can return to the encampment and prepare for war.

Yet… There is a sense of isolation, so far from civilization. They haven’t seen other travelers since the disappearance of the caravaneers, and to Arthur it feels as though they are very small in the face of things

He and Varius are only two, preparing to infiltrate a city full of hardened soldiers.

‘We need to take a break.’

His head snaps up; Varius’s face betrays nothing of the waver that was in his voice as he spoke, but Arthur can see the way his shoulders tremble under the weight of his pack.

‘We’ve gone longer than this without rest,’ Arthur says, turning his glance ahead. ‘We can keep going.’

‘It’s not us I’m worried about.’

For the better part of a day, Lee has marched ahead at full speed. For the first time, Arthur sees the way his steps falter, the way his feet drag. The legionaries have been trained to do this since before adolescence; if needed, they could keep up a march like this for much longer. It’s clear in the hunch of Lee’s shoulders, however, that he isn’t built to sustain such a pace — much less with the combined burdens of his own pack and Nina’s on his back.

‘Let him burn out,’ Arthur says coolly. ‘He isn’t our responsibility.’

Varius grabs his wrist and yanks on it, hard, until pain and irritation make him stop. He rounds on Varius, vicious and impatient, yet the other man meets his stare unflinchingly.

‘Lee knows this route better than either of us,’ Varius says, low and stubborn. ‘He’s a good shot, too. And the way I see it, the rest of the caravan dropped like flies — whatever’s out there, we need him.’

Arthur looks forward again and takes in Lee’s lean form, all but buckling under the weight of his cargo. He’s sure the man knows as well as he does that Old Mollie could have taken much of his burden, yet Lee insisted on carrying it — to prove something to himself, or to the others. Arthur feels no sympathy for him, should he push himself too hard and fall; yet he can’t deny that Varius has a point. They still don’t know what’s out there, threatening to pick them off in the night.

Ahead, Lee’s figure gets steadily smaller as the gap between them grows.

‘Fine,’ he says, through gritted teeth. ‘But you’re talking to him.’

In spite of himself, he relishes the chance to catch his breath while Varius jogs ahead to stop Lee; setting his pack aside, he moves slowly to meet up with the others and rolls the tension from his shoulders as he goes.

‘Can we stop for a while?’ Varius pleads.

To Arthur, the fatigue evident in his voice sounds entirely too genuine.

Lee’s silence serves as response enough, though Varius isn’t to be deterred. Arthur watches him march ahead and stand in front of Lee, putting his hands up to the other man’s chest to halt him.

‘Fifteen minutes.’

Lee shakes his head and attempts to sidestep; Varius is stubborn, however, and holds his ground.

‘I’m good,’ Lee says. ‘We’ll rest later.’

Arthur sees his companion is getting nowhere with this tactic. He recognizes a doggedness in Lee that seemed to be absent before — a consequence of letting his sister take the lead, perhaps. He won’t be talked down so easily.

‘Give me the map,’ Arthur says, once he reaches them.

When Lee doesn’t obey immediately, Arthur gives the man a pointed stare and extends his hand expectantly. He doesn’t back down until Lee eventually gives in with a frustrated sigh and fishes the crumpled map from his things.

The X marking the Deathclaw nest is still a little closer than he’d like, not quite far enough behind them yet, but Arthur turns his attention elsewhere. He finds the riverbed they have been following and tracks it upstream, to where it meets a larger river.

It doesn’t take long to find what he’s look for — a small town on the banks by the name of Taborville.

‘There,’ he says, pointing.

He glances up from where he crouches over the map, and both Varius and Lee peer over his shoulder.

‘Nina went without her pack, so she wouldn’t get far without needing food, water and shelter. If she’s following the river, she’d have to wind up here.’

He shoots a meaningful look at Varius; the other man nods in understanding.

‘He’s right,’ Varius says. ‘It’s not far. We can look for her there, okay?’

Arthur can’t help but hold his breath. The longer it takes to come to a decision, the later it will be by the time they get to the town; he doesn’t intend on being outdoors another night if he can help it. Towns have buildings — and buildings can be reinforced.

‘Okay.’

Arthur’s breath comes out in a burst, and in Varius’s face he sees relief.

‘Okay,’ he echoes, packing up the map. ‘Then let’s get going.’

* * *

Taborville is a ghost town.

Arthur doesn’t know what he had expected to find, but a part of him had hoped there might be some sign of life there. With each passing night it feels like they might be the last people — here in the wastes, and in the world. They might as well be.

The town does little to lessen his disquiet, with its ramshackle buildings and overgrown dirt road.

If anyone has been here, it hasn’t been for a long time; and yet to Arthur it feels as though the place is frozen in time, abandoned in the middle of day-to-day life. A cart lies tipped over in the street, and whether it fell there before or after the Great War is debatable. The tobacconist looks almost untouched, while the hand-printed sign in the window proudly displays ‘OPEN’ for all to see.

At the edge of the street is a water pump, turned green with verdigris. Varius heads there first, giving an exclamation of glee when it turns out to be functional and crystal-clear water spouts forth.

His voice should echo through the town, through the hills nestled around it. Instead the sound seems dull, muted somehow.

Arthur walks past Varius and the pump, past Lee where he makes a visor of his hands and peers into a darkened window.

In the middle of the town there is a crossroads where another street houses buildings on either side, before disappearing into the hills. With the way the setting sun hits the chalky track, it almost looks like the dirt has been churned up by a set of wheels. When Arthur tries to look again he finds it’s a play of the light; the worn road is smooth, untouched for years.

‘See if you can find somewhere to stay tonight,’ he calls back to the others, and again the sound seems to die off. He doesn’t move off until he’s sure he hears Varius’s voice in answer.

His legs compel him down the other track at the crossroads. He puts his back to the hills and wanders in the opposite direction, a hand ready at the pistol in his belt. He almost hopes he’ll have to use it — hopes to stumble upon a nest of radroaches or ferals. Anything’s better than the silence, disturbed only by the crunch of the grit under his feet.

His chosen path takes him toward the river, past buildings and over a spindly bridge before winding away and fading into the earth. This is where the town ends: where what passes for civilization here tapers off and becomes lonesome wasteland once again. Atop the bridge he stands with his hands resting on the rotted wooden railings, and listens to the burble of the water underneath.

A little away from the town, he can see the last red strands of light dying off at the horizon. As if in a daydream, he blinks and realizes it’s night; the weight of the darkness presses down on him, thick and cloying.

He turns back towards town, quickening his pace a little this time.

Varius waits for him at the crossroads, pale arms waving him over. He can’t make out his companion’s face but there’s an urgency to his movements.

‘Dust storm coming in,’ Varius says. ‘Lee found someplace we can wait it out until morning.’

Arthur feels the thickness in the air, the whirl of grit caught up in the breeze and whipped against his face. He follows gladly as Varius leads him to their chosen lodging for the night; they’re scarcely at the porch of a home before a gust blasts along the street and sends a cloud of dust with it.

‘You get Mollie?’ Lee asks, ushering them in.

Varius nods.

‘There’s a stable in back of the saloon. She should be okay there ‘til it passes.’

With the door safely closed, Lee gestures meekly at their home for the night, dimly illuminated as it is by the hurricane lanterns he has already set out. Mottled furniture fills the room, and in the corner a cabinet with broken glass windows shows off a grimy collection of plates — probably somebody’s pride and joy once upon a time.

The place isn’t much, but it’s a roof over their heads; only one of the windows needs patching up, and Lee and Varius set to it with a spare scrap of tarp.

The stairs to the second floor have collapsed, the wood rotted beyond repair. In the back there’s a kitchen with a table and four chairs neatly pushed in beneath it, each with mismatched floral upholstery on the seat. Arthur toes at the leg of one of the chairs and hears it creak forbiddingly.

‘You think there’s anything good left in the fridge?’

Varius stands in the doorway, leaning his weight against the frame of it. He has a lantern in his hand, and passes it over for Arthur to set on the table.

They stand a few feet apart from one another, the light of the flame casting shadows about them. To Arthur, it seems it brings out the dark circles under Varius’s eyes.

‘I don’t think Nina came this way,’ Varius says, hushed enough to keep it from Lee’s ears. ‘I don’t think _anybody’s_ been through here in a long while.’

Arthur folds his arms across his chest. In the other room, he can hear the low whine of furniture being dragged across the floor.

‘We can worry about that tomorrow,’ he says.

Varius watches him until Arthur finally turns away, moving to the window. Outside he can see the roiling wave of red dust, can hear the rumble of it.

Behind him, Varius sighs.

‘You don’t care what happened to them, do you?’

‘You do?’ Arthur counters, without turning. ‘They’re unimportant. A distraction.’

He hears the creak of floorboards underfoot as Varius shifts — expects the other man to approach, but he never does. After a long moment Varius sighs again and the wood groans under his weight as he walks away, leaving Arthur to watch the storm alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Taborville is a fabrication — based around the placer mining towns that sprang up across the many rivers of Colorado. It's actually pretty interesting stuff if you're willing to waste some time looking it up.


	24. Halloween Special — V

_February 2290 — abandoned placer mining town — somewhere in the former state of Colorado_

The novelty of sleeping with a roof over their heads — one of real wood and nails — isn’t lost on Arthur. He forces himself to eat slowly, fighting off the urge all the while to sink into slumber in the armchair he has claimed as his own.

As long as the dust storm blows through town, he knows they should be safe — and yet he can’t help but doubt the assumption. They still don’t know whether Nina was taken, or whether she left camp of her own accord. A boot discarded on the ground is poor evidence to base a theory around.

Varius and Lee talk idly over their food, heads bent low. What few words drift over to Arthur’s corner of the room are not meant for his ears.

The house creaks under the strain of the storm, the windows rattling in their frames. Outside, the panicked cries of the brahmin can be heard under the hiss of the storm and Arthur wonders if the beast will make it through the night.

Varius starts a fire in the old grate set into the wall and they sit around it once they’ve eaten, basking in the first real taste of luxury they’ve had in a while. Arthur can remember the last time he sat in front of a fireplace, but he keeps it to himself: back then it was such a cold, harsh winter that his teacher let him and his fellow students take their lesson by the fireside. He doesn’t even know if Varius remembers that day; it’s a stray memory of a past life, plucked from nowhere.

His eyelids grow heavy as he stares into the dancing flames, his cheeks burning in the glow of the fire. When his head starts to nod of his own accord, he gets up and paces the room until the movement makes the others edgy. From there, he moves to the kitchen and runs through some exercises by the light of the oil lamp to get the blood flowing again.

Varius is set to take the first shift, yet Arthur can’t quite shake the feeling that one person on watch isn’t enough. If Nina were still with them, they could have had some overlap — with only three, there’s no way of doing it without someone losing some sleep.

Part of his initiation into the ranks of the legionaries involved being woken up at intervals through the night before he could reach a deep sleep; this went on for months. It’s something that sticks with him even now — a readiness to wake at a moment’s notice.

He trusts Varius only so much to keep them safe; he trusts Lee even less. Privately, Arthur makes plans to wake himself and check in with each of them.

When he returns to the main room, Lee is already tucked away under his blanket as Varius stands watching the whorls of dust outside the window. Arthur steps up beside him and for a while they stay side by side in silence.

‘We can follow the river the rest of the way to the stronghold,’ Arthur says, keeping his voice low. ‘We should make good time if we leave at first light.’

He sees Varius’s head turn, watches him cast a glance at Lee where he lies curled up by the fire.

‘The river takes us out of our way, doesn’t it?’

Arthur inclines his head a little; it was something he had considered.

‘Whatever happened to the rest of the caravan, we’re out in the open if we stay on the trade route,’ he responds, picturing the map as he speaks. ‘Where there’s water there’ll be tree cover, and other towns to shelter in if we need to.’

Varius gives a prim nod, a legionary accepting his orders. He turns back to the window and plays his fingers against the glass, and Arthur watches as he runs his nail over a bubble in the pane.

‘Lee won’t leave without Nina,’ he murmurs. ‘But I’ll convince him, one way or another.’

The words reassure Arthur — that the other man knows where his true loyalties should lie, that he’ll put the mission first when it comes to it.

Arthur walks away to his corner of the room and sinks into his chair, taking his jacket for a blanket. He’ll wake again in an hour or so, before his body relaxes into too deep of a slumber.

Until then, he’ll catch as much rest as he can.

* * *

He rises from time to time, stretching out his legs and ridding himself of the last vestiges of drowsiness. Varius watches him with interest, but says nothing; long after midnight he silently joins Arthur as he goes through the motions of his drills.

When Varius’s watch is over, Lee takes his place. For a while Arthur watches under an arm flung across his face as the man paces in front of the door, the boards making a splintering sound with each step.

The fire has long since dwindled to embers, plunging the room into darkness, when Lee makes his way to the couch where Varius rests. The two talk for a spell in whispers too soft for Arthur to pick out, and when their talking turns to other sounds he buries himself a little deeper into the armchair, turning his attention to the roar of the dust storm outside.

His exhaustion catches up to him, the plush, padded cushion of the chair beneath him growing too comfortable to resist.

He dozes.

When he eventually wakes it feels much later — the air has a heavy quality to it, and he has to push through the veil of drowsiness to get himself up. The room is in shadow, but he can pick out the shapes of the furniture here and there by the red glow coming through the windows.

The door’s open.

At once he’s on his feet; his oilskin jacket hits the floor with a clunk of metal fastenings against the wooden boards, and the sound is enough to make Varius stir.

Arthur moves to the couch and ducks low at the edge of it, giving Varius’s shoulder a rough shake.

‘Where’s Lee?’ he asks, gruff and urgent.

Through the darkness Arthur can just pick out the features of Varius’s face, can see him blink his eyes a few times and look around. The man sits up then, rigid.

‘Ah, shit.’

Arthur doesn’t wait for Varius to dress. He finds his pistol wedged down the arm of his chair, palms it and makes for the door. Varius barely has his button-up fastened by the time Arthur ventures out onto the porch.

The dust storm still rages outside, deafening and suffocating all at once. Through the grit he can see a figure down the street, making for the crossroads.

‘Lee,’ he calls, his voice swept away in the wind.

He stumbles after the silhouette, arm thrown up to shield his eyes. He knows the danger of dust storms — of getting turned around, disoriented. He keeps his focus ahead and follows Lee’s path, pushing harder the more the storm fights him.

He’s at the crossroads when he realizes he isn’t following Lee any more, and he looks left and right, turning about to try to find the man again. A wave of dust swarms him and he takes in a lungful of the stuff, coughing and spluttering and blinded by the stinging particles.

A voice calls his name; he trudges toward the sound of it, coughing in great fits as he goes.

‘Lee?’ he shouts. And then, forgetting himself, ‘Varius?’

He hears his name again, more urgent. His legs pull him forward step by faltering step.

He tries to call out but his voice barely rasps out, his throat hoarse and torn up by the dust. When he lowers his arm just enough to see ahead he can see somebody there, a lone form in the vortex of the storm.

‘ _Arthur._ ’

 _River,_ he thinks at first, but he realizes now that he knows that figure ahead of him — recognizes those steadfast shoulders, those welcoming arms.

He feels it in his bones: a siren’s call. It’s sweet, lovingly murmured words in the ear of a sleeping child; it’s a gentle hand smoothing down a stray strand of hair before the first day of school.

He keeps moving, a little faster this time — and the storm seems to stop fighting him, lending its strength to spur him onward.

When he tries to speak again he finds his voice, and it’s strong and clear and not his own somehow, and yet he _knows_ it’s his own, like he knows his own reflection.

‘Mom?’ his voice says, and when the figure calls out to him again he knows it’s smiling, knows _she’s_ smiling.

The deafening roar of the storm seems muffled now, less pressing. When he lifts his head he finds he can see more clearly, can make out the way her blouse crumples just slightly at the shoulders as she reaches out to him.

A few more steps and he’ll be there: in her arms, safe and happy and whole.

Something tugs at him, nags at the edge of his consciousness. When he pushes against it, it only pulls more fiercely.

There’s pain; it blooms in his bicep, then shoots through his arm. For a moment the pain is everything and nothing, and then the storm comes crashing down on him again.

‘Arthur!’ someone says, and this time the voice is at his ear, slightly muffled by the storm but sharp and insistent and _real_.

He feels the pain lessen, but the tugging sensation persists — a glance down shows a hand there, gripped around his arm. He looks to the owner of that arm and finds Varius there, blond hair milling about his face in the gale.

‘C’mon,’ Varius insists. He pulls again, and this time Arthur follows.

* * *

The dawn brings with it a glorious light that bathes the empty streets of Taborville in its glow.

There’s a stillness to the place, to the mildew-stained wood and glinting, dusty windows. In the morning light, crickets chirp in the frost-crisp undergrowth.

Arthur sits on the porch with his back to the wall, pistol in hand. Indoors, Lee swears as Varius stitches up a gash on his forehead with a needle and thread.

None of them slept much, in the aftermath; snatches of slumber caught here and there is no way to rest, but they’ll manage.

At the very least, they’re safe.

‘Ben?’

The name still isn’t familiar to him — a beat passes before he remembers its significance and ducks his head around the doorway to look inside.

‘You got any of that whiskey leftover?’ Varius asks. One hand is poised with the needle between his fingers; the other tilts Lee’s head gently back the better to see the wound in the lamplight.

‘There should be antiseptic in with the rest of the first aid supplies.’

Varius gives a soft laugh, and when Arthur looks again he’s sharing a wry grin with Lee: fond, familiar.

‘I meant the drinking kind,’ Varius says. ‘ _Somebody_ can’t handle a little pinch.’

Arthur leaves them to their teasing; with the thought of a drink put in his head, he can’t quite shake it. Alcohol and exhaustion rarely mix well, but they all need a distraction.

One of the caravaneers — long gone now, to wherever it is they’ve been spirited away — had a stockpile of alcohol and chems bound for the stronghold. The latter he won’t touch, a vice even the new regime of the Legion don't allow, but he supposes a bottle or two of something hard won’t do much harm.

He makes for the stable and takes in the fresh air, letting the cold cleanse him. As the morning unfolds he hears more animal life joins the crickets: the warble of the songbirds, the bark of a lone fox straying close to the edge of town.

Old Mollie is placid when he finds her, sitting calmly with her legs tucked in under her. She lets him approach with little apprehension, gives a bleat of recognition as he opens the buckles of one of her saddlebags.

His hand goes to her of its own accord; meets the mottled fur of her neck and finds it surprisingly soft, for all its grubbiness.

Bottle in hand, Arthur turns back for the homestead where Lee and Varius wait.

From here he can see the crossroads a little ways off, its solitary signpost illegible under a coat of red dust. He thinks of the night before — of the voice, and the woman in the middle of the storm. He’s rooted to the spot, the vision of her so clear in his mind that he can almost, _almost_ make out the image of her there on the cracked earth, beckoning him closer.

He bites the inside of his cheek, quick and sharp. Like the night before, the pain brings him back to the moment: the roads are empty, the apparition gone.

* * *

They make it through that night without event, and the next. Whatever possessed Lee to run out into the dust storm seems to have vanished from him much like the signs of the storm itself: gradually they come across ground untouched by the blood-red grit, and Arthur finds himself breathing a little easier.

Lee still speaks of Nina like she’s with them — keeps opening his mouth as though to say something to her before catching himself, falling into silence. It suits Arthur just fine to travel in peace, but Varius fills the lulls in conversation with idle chatter of his own, an incessant attempt at keeping things cheerful.

Their journey is dull, relentless monotony once more and they cling to it, to the bland meals and poor hygiene, to the lack of privacy and petty arguments. By the time the caravan route trades dirt roads for paved blacktop, Arthur feels like he knows Lee better than some of the men in his contubernium.

They pass by Brotherhood patrols: clad in standard issue armor, toting energy weapons that could burn a hole right through Old Mollie’s flank at midrange. Arthur instinctively tenses when they come into view, but beyond questioning their itinerary and asking about their cargo, the soldiers seem unbothered by their presence.

By nonverbal agreement, they keep the fates of the others to themselves; that story can wait until they have warm food in their bellies.

The stronghold creeps up on them in patchwork pieces, in broken-down homes and fractured sidewalks. Soon there is a wall of concrete and steel, a relatively new addition that stands out starkly against the red brick buildings on either side of it.

There is a gate; two soldiers in power armor stand to either side of it, identical, inhuman, imposing. They each yield miniguns, and Arthur dimly remembers the weight of them — a childhood mishap, attempting to pick one up and succeeding only in dropping the barrel on his foot.

Just a few feet more and the guards will stop them and demand to see their papers — everything checked and cross-checked, vetted and verified. Arthur’s hand goes to the left breast of his jacket, where he feels the reassuring bulk of the forged papers within.

A few more feet, and beyond that their mission will begin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And finally, the Halloween special is complete! I had a lot of fun writing it, even if it kind of spiralled into something more ambitious than intended.
> 
> I wanted it to stay true to the spirit of the story thus far — to the solitude of the wasteland.
> 
> I hope you've all enjoyed the ride.


	25. XVI

_February 2290 — Brotherhood stronghold — northern reaches of the former state of Colorado_

Bricks and mortar span out as far as the eye can see; people in varying states of prosperity mill the streets, and there’s an undercurrent of life in the very air Arthur’s breathes.

He hasn’t been somewhere so populous since his last stint at Flagstaff, the Legion capital. Yet for all the similarities of the two cities — the constant hum of activity, the painstakingly refurbished buildings — they’re a world apart.

The lack of people hanging crucified by the roadside is the least of it.

He tries to act unimpressed as he walks with Varius and Lee along the smooth pavement leading into the city proper. This should be nothing new to him — just another dazzling city in another harsh wasteland.

Surreptitiously, he studies the place. Reconnaissance.

‘There's a motel,’ Varius says, pointing down the street. ‘Will you get us a room? I've gotta check in with somebody.’

Arthur searches the other man's face — there's a look there that says he'll explain later.

Arthur nods.

‘I'll take you there,’ Lee says.

He tips his head and sets off walking; Old Mollie falls into line behind him, and Arthur can do little more than tag along after them.

* * *

The first thing Arthur does upon opening the door to his room is to shed his outer clothes in a heap on the floor.

Lee did him the favor of recommending that he order hot water up to his room for a bath; once the idea was in his head, it was impossible to dislodge.

While he waits for the water, he goes through his belongings once, then once more to be sure.

The cargo he and Varius carry is typical of most traders in the wasteland — assorted junk, only useful to anybody with a very specific purpose. To the legionaries, however, it’s the sum of the parts that proves their worth: put together just right, they have enough explosives to put a dent in the stronghold should they need to.

That’s not the mission, however; their focus is the vertibird. They’re under express orders not to draw any unwanted attention onto themselves in their time at the stronghold.

The thought of it — that he could slip from his room now and cripple the Brotherhood from the inside — is enough to make his pulse race. He wills himself to go through the myriad bits and pieces of seemingly random junk in an effort to catalog it, to calm himself.

Before he knows it, he’s pacing. The span of the room, with its peeling, faded green wallpaper seems impossibly small when he knows the Brotherhood are just outside, going about their day with no knowledge of the enemy they’ve allowed within their gates.

He slips into his jacket and boots once more and hurriedly sorts his things away, stuffing the pack underneath his bed.

As eager as he was to scrape the dirt from his skin, he can’t sit still long enough; he pushes his way out of the motel, hot water all but forgotten, and emerges onto the streets.

Dusk is rapidly approaching, yet there’s no sign of the bustle of the stronghold winding down. Whether it’s someone hocking their wares on the edge of the street, or a storefront full of people idly browsing, it feels like there’s activity everywhere he looks.

Flagstaff isn’t like this — a living, breathing hub, full of lights and colors and sounds. Every word spoken at Flagstaff has a purpose; every citizen a job that they must see to for the betterment of the Legion. Where Flagstaff is washed-out colors interspersed with Legion red, the Brotherhood stronghold is a flurry of painted buildings and flowers and trees as far as the eye can see.

He knows this isn’t the heart of the operation — knows there must be somewhere deeper within the city, where the Brotherhood house and train their men. The people he sees roaming the streets are civilians under the protection of the Brotherhood, counting on the army’s brute strength and vast numbers to stand sentinel over them while they sleep unworried in their soft beds at night.

Arthur ducks low into the collar of his jacket, out of instinct more than anything. He doubts that anyone here has ever seen him — he has seldom left enemies alive to recognize him — but he feels like his allegiance is etched into his skin. Shave away the thick, unruly beard and wash off the coating of dirt, and there he’ll be, plain to see: a loyal servant of Caesar’s Legion.

He heads northwards, deeper into the city, and steadily the signs of the Brotherhood become more apparent: soldiers in prim flight suits, others wrapped in bomber jackets that hang open jauntily.

Soon there are pre-War signs pointing to a university, with newer additions tacked on that list military locations. He stops at the foot of one and looks ahead to where a barricade lies around what must have once been the university, long since repurposed by the Brotherhood of Steel.

Soldiers patrol the barricade in suits of power armor; even from here, Arthur can hear the thunder of hydraulics-powered footsteps on concrete.

He feels it again — that overwhelming smallness in the face of everything. Suddenly he’s a child, being marched into Flagstaff in a procession of slaves pillaged from his settlement and others. The sight of the Legion’s capital, grand and austere, had made him shake so hard he had to grit his teeth to stop them chattering together.

He doesn’t tremble now; instead he balls his hands beneath the grubby lengths of his sleeves and stands watching the barricade, committing the soldiers’ movements to memory. At second glance they’re sloppier now — complacent. However much they might be prepared for war, they feel safe within their walls.

Just like the NCR, the Brotherhood will crumble. Arthur will see to it himself, if he has to.

* * *

The water is tepid by the time he returns to his room, but he doesn’t care.

He scrubs so hard at his skin that it almost hurts, and by the end of it he feels like some semblance of a man again. He eyes his reflection in the cracked mirror above the hand basin, contemplating his facial hair. Trimming it back would bring him one step closer to feeling like himself, but then _himself_ is irrelevant on this particular mission.

He doesn’t hear Varius come in; one moment Arthur is alone, then the other man is behind him in the doorway to the bathroom. When he catches sight of Varius in the mirror he only just manages to conceal his flinch of surprise.

‘You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that,’ he says, irritated — at himself for being caught off guard, mostly.

Varius smirks, and in the mirror the crooked tilt of his lips looks odd, unsettling.

‘Kinda my job description, don’t you think? Infiltration?’

Arthur turns. His companion is still steeped in dirt, his sandy blond hair dark and stringy. _His_ facial hair has barely grown in, Arthur notices, but what little there is to see is enough to bring a more rugged look to his boyish features.

Between the two of them, they’re unrecognizable.

‘You still speak like one of _them_ ,’ Arthur says, pushing past the other man into the main room.

‘We’re still undercover,’ Varius replies, turning in the doorway as Arthur passes. ‘Whether we’re on the streets or in a private room in a motel, we still have to keep it up.’

Arthur shrugs. He feels a rivulet of water run down his back from where he missed it in his hair; it beads at the collar of the fresh shirt he wears.

‘I’ll leave the tactics to you.’

He sets about sorting his old, filth-encrusted clothes into his pack, squirreled in the bottom away from everything else. Slowly, it dawns on him that Varius is watching him. Sighing, he turns to look at him.

‘What is it?’

Varius shakes his head noncommittally; after a pause, however, he takes a step away from the doorway and into the room.

‘How’s it feel?’ he asks. ‘Being here?’

The intent of his words doesn’t quite sink in until Arthur catches the hesitance on Varius’s face, the strain. This feels like one of those times when Varius can’t quite let go of the past — can’t quite remember that the boy he was back then is long since dead.

Arthur blinks.

‘It doesn’t _feel_ like anything,’ he says coolly.

With that he returns to his task, but he doesn’t hear Varius move from his spot. Eventually the man’s tread crosses the floor, and Arthur feels a hand on his arm.

‘You’re a terrible liar.’

Arthur turns, ready to rebuke Varius, but he finds him devoid of his signature humor. There’s a look there that brings him back years earlier, when they had been about to embark on their first real raid as true legionaries. Fear; uncertainty. Back then, Arthur had needed to keep spurring him on with talk of the glory they would return home to.

‘It’s not like I expected,’ he admits, reluctantly. ‘I thought I’d… feel _more_.’

Varius seems satisfied with the response. He steps away and perches himself on the edge of his own bed, long fingers plucking at the threadbare bedspread.

‘It’s gone, you know,’ he says quietly. ‘Our home.’

Varius looks at him seriously; Arthur wills himself to look back.

‘Not home,’ he replies. ‘Not for a long time.’

Varius sighs then, and throws himself back onto the bed with such force that the rusted springs creak under his weight. He scrubs his hands over his face, through his hair.

‘They never bothered to resettle after the Legion was done with the place,’ he says. ‘From what I could find out, some of the people made it out alive. Moved east, mostly, to join up with the Capital chapter. Some of them came here.’

The words leave Arthur feeling cold. The thought that someone in this city could be from the town he was taken from...

He shakes his head, willing the thoughts away.

‘Why have you been wasting your time on this?’ he demands. He can feel his cheeks burn. ‘Our loyalty is to Caesar.’

At this, Varius pushes himself up into a sitting position, propping himself on his arms.

‘We were loyal to the Brotherhood once,’ he says. ‘I know who I’ve pledged myself to, but that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten where we came from.’

It isn’t the first time Varius has said something of such a subversive nature; if Arthur knows him at all, if the years have meant anything, it probably won’t be the last. Still, he can’t help but feel that familiar prickle at the back of his neck, the one that used to pre-empt the light footsteps and sharp, commanding tone of a legionary approaching behind him.

He used to question sometimes where Varius would have been without him there to cover for him, to train late into the night with him so that the Legion wouldn’t discard him as too weak to be of any use.

In the decade since, he has watched Varius grow into a man, as he has in turn — watched him learn to look out for himself, and to make the most of his cunning and agility to cover for his failings.

Still Varius says these things, as though he couldn’t be strung from a cross for treason. It’s never within earshot of someone who might tell, of course, but Arthur would rather he never said any of it at all.

He looks at his companion — his friend — and moves to stand in front of him, stooping until they’re eye level.

‘Those days are over,’ he says. He speaks slowly and clearly, holding Varius’s gaze. ‘Those kids who left Kansas are gone.’

Varius shakes his head — in resignation, or frustration. He slips away from Arthur and stands up, heading for the door that leads out onto the hallway.

‘We have an in,’ he says, pausing there with his back to Arthur. ‘Forged credentials, uniforms. My contact has it all waiting for us, at a burned-out bookstore a couple blocks from their base.’

_Their_ base. He got that part right, at least.

‘Your contact?’

Arthur sees Varius’s head incline slightly; watches the profile of his face as he turns to look back.

‘A Knight,’ he says. ‘Not everyone here thinks the Brotherhood is what’s best for the people.’

Arthur nods once. It’s a common refrain: there’s always someone within enemy lines willing to turn on their neighbors, usually for a price.

Varius’s hand is on the doorknob before he pauses and looks back again. His signature smirk is in place, his eyes crinkling at the corners.

‘You might wanna get a haircut. The Brotherhood are pretty precious about keeping up with fashion.’


	26. XVII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been almost two months since I last updated. Whoops!
> 
> We're getting very close to endgame here, but I have a few tricks left. I'd love to give you an estimate in terms of how many chapters will be left but I've never been too good at sticking to my own goals.
> 
> Besides, when I was initially working on this chapter a couple months back it occurred to me that Something Was Going to Happen and that that Something was going to delay things a little. Not a bad delay, I hope — with any luck you're still enjoying the ride.
> 
> I'm back on [tumblr](http://princetybalt.tumblr.com), incidentally.

_February 2290 — Brotherhood stronghold — northern reaches of the former state of Colorado_

Arthur chafes under the skin-tight confines of his flight suit. He feels ridiculous.

His hair is coiffed just slightly on top, combed precisely back and parted to one side; Varius helped him shave the sides in a graduated taper that seems entirely impractical to maintain for someone in the military, but it’s the going fashion at the moment.

They both agreed it would probably be safer for him to keep his beard, lest someone chance to recognize him by the scar on his face.

Varius’s dark blond hair, grown almost jaw-length, is similarly shorn at the sides, but he kept it long at the top and scraped it back into a knot at the back of his head. Clean-shaven, he looks nothing like the man who wandered into the stronghold from the wasteland.

It’s startling to Arthur to see how comfortable Varius looks in his olive and black jumpsuit and bomber jacket, shoulders thrown back in an affectation of arrogance as they stride down the streets from the bookstore.

To Arthur, it’s a convincing disguise; it remains to be seen whether the Brotherhood will be fooled.

They tote laser pistols at their hips, further gifts from Varius’s contact. Arthur knows they’re armed merely to maintain appearances, but it’s reassuring to feel the heft of the gun in its holster clipping his thigh with every other step he takes.

There’s a knot in Arthur’s throat as they pass through the barricade into the base. They spent all day rehearsing what to say in the event that they’re stopped, but as his pace slows just slightly in passing the guards to either side of the entrance, he feels Varius smack his leg by way of warning. Arthur does as his friend demonstrates and keeps walking.

They’re through the entryway without so much as a sideways glance from either of the guards in their hulking power armor.

‘According to my contact, the landing pad should be on a plaza near here,’ Varius murmurs, keeping close to Arthur.

They follow the street signs, passing more Brotherhood soldiers along the way than Arthur thinks he has ever seen in one place. They barely acknowledge the men — just two more in a sea of half-familiar faces.

He wonders if it would be so easy for outsiders to infiltrate the Legion. His pride tells him it would not, but only a few minutes earlier he had been convinced that Varius’s plan wouldn’t work in the first place.

Everywhere, they see collegiate buildings that have been repurposed for the Brotherhood’s use: banners hang across the facades of most of the structures, and certain locations have been reinforced with metal coverings over the windows while heavy, polished steel doors replace the originals.

With more time at his disposal, Arthur would explore each of these places — to glean as much as he could about the enemy, to sabotage anything and everything of strategic importance. He sees sense in maintaining their cover and only pursuing the vertibirds, yet to him it seems a waste of their talent. With a small squad, infiltrating as they are now, they might just have won the war before it ever truly began.

Arthur hears the high-pitched whine of the vertibird’s rotors before he ever sees it; when they come in view of the plaza, he sees the craft taking off with a number of soldiers visible inside. As it takes to the air he feels their plan perish with it.

He stops, face turned to the sky to watch the vertibird go. It doesn’t fly south, as he expects — it goes east.

A hand tugs at the sleeve of his jacket; when he looks at Varius, the man merely points ahead.

More landing pads can be seen ahead, a number of them unoccupied, but a quick count of the ones that have vertibirds docked on them puts the tally at least in the double digits.

Varius whistles, long and low. 

‘Huh,’ he says.

His blunt nails make a rasping sound as he scratches the shaved part of his head.

‘We're gonna need more explosives.’

* * *

They spend the better part of an hour scouting the location, watching the movements of the troops and trying to piece together some sort of a pattern to the arrivals and departures of the aircraft. 

Sometimes a vertibird comes in loaded with big metal ammunition cases; others, there are soldiers who disembark and briskly march in the direction of a nearby building. 

They need a new plan — that much is certain.

‘Can we rewire them?’ Arthur asks. 

The look Varius gives him is all the answer he needs. 

‘Even if we could figure out how, that would only keep them grounded as long as it takes to undo whatever we did.’

They leave the base defeated, and no closer to coming up with a plan. 

The walk back to the bookstore is subdued; Arthur imagines Varius is as fixated on coming to some sort of a solution as he is, so he's grateful for the silence. 

He's less grateful that they went into this so blind; he had been expecting a handful of vertibirds at the most, not a fleet of them. 

They shed their Brotherhood uniforms and return to their own attire. Varius lets his hair loose from the knot atop his head and to Arthur he looks like any wastelander he might come across in the city — cleaner than most, perhaps, but brow-beaten. Unremarkable. 

They pack up their newly-earned clothing with them this time, tucked away under an assortment of grimy items in the bottom of their packs. It gives Arthur a sickening lurch to see the Brotherhood colors nestled amid the washed-out rags that make up his own belongings.

‘I’ll try to get in touch with my contact again,’ Varius says, before they leave. ‘Maybe he can free up some munitions.’

Arthur watches as his companion adjusts and readjusts the strap on his shoulder, his fingers working absently at the rust-eaten buckle.

‘Are you sure you can trust him?’ Arthur counters. ‘He certainly didn’t think to warn you how many vertibirds there would be.’

He doesn’t get an answer.

They stop off at the motel first, and Arthur hands over a pouch of caps for Varius to bring with him. 

‘Stop by every trader you see,’ he says. ‘If something looks like it might do for an explosive, buy it. We’ll figure out the rest later.’

He expects Varius to go immediately; haste is more important now than ever. Instead the other man lingers, weighing the pouch of caps in his hand.

‘Do you need more than that?’ Arthur asks.

Varius looks at him blankly for a beat; slowly, understanding dawns on him and he shakes his head.

‘No, this is plenty.’

Arthur nods resolutely, turning his attention back to studying a weathered map of the city, committing it and the newly-added landmarks in red to memory.

‘You should come with me.’

He looks up slowly, impassively.

‘It would draw too much attention for me to be there when you reach out to your contact,’ he says flatly. ‘Besides, we can cover more ground between us.’

A sigh from Varius, and a shake of his head. Arthur can see more than a little frustration written into his expression.

‘Just one drink, Regulus,’ Varius says. ‘Just to take the edge off. They won’t spare a second look at two guys having a beer together.’

Years earlier, before he had earned his rank by blood — his enemies’ and his own — he might have given in. There had been a time when a simple drink had marked the beginning of many a night of escapades, getting up to trouble that could have had them crucified if caught by the wrong person. It isn’t long since the days when they would regularly get a little too tipsy with Livia, staying up later than ever intended and sharing jokes and arguments alike.

It’s been months, but it feels like years.

His mouth forms the shape of a refusal, but he pauses in spite of himself. At the very least, drinking with the locals might give them a chance at picking up useful information.

Reluctantly, he nods his head just once.

‘Fine,’ he says. ‘But after that, we’re focusing on the mission.’


	27. XVIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This gets a little violent toward the end, just to warn anyone who might be feeling vulnerable right now.

_February 2290 — Brotherhood stronghold — northern reaches of the former state of Colorado_

It was a mistake coming along; the greater error lay in allowing Varius to keep plying him with drinks.

The flickering, ancient neon sign above the bar casts a harsh red glow over everything beneath it — from the shelves stocked with alcohol new and old, to Arthur’s gaunt face reflected in the mirrored wall.

‘COLD BEER,’ the neon proclaims. Half-right, at least.

He can hear a chorus of women’s laughter behind him at the billiards table: a sultry, soft chuckle meant to seduce, and a high-pitched giggle meant to flatter. He knows Varius is the target of these attempts at coercion, and from the low, cocky sound of his companion’s voice from time to time, he gathers that the women’s efforts are going well.

He’s seen Varius drunk: the utterly, bouncing against the walls kind and the teary-eyed kind. Varius has just as many drinks as he does under his belt, but he knows that Varius’s sloppiness is at least partly an act.

Arthur is what Livia used to call ‘mean drunk’. The whiskey bottle by his hand is doing little to chase his mood away.

Every time the door swings open his head shoots up and he catches Varius’s do the same; he studies the other's expression for some sort of show of recognition, but it never comes.

They’ve been here four hours — three since they got confirmation that the contact would meet with them. Arthur has made an art out of patience, but it’s starting to wear thin.

Varius appears at his elbow: leans across him so that his chin is almost tucked into Arthur’s shoulder; grabs the whiskey bottle and takes a swig directly out of the neck of it.

‘You should join us,’ he says, his words sending the acrid smell of alcohol into Arthur’s face. ‘Rose says you’re cute.’

Arthur fights the urge to roll his eyes, but nevertheless he lifts his glance to the mirror and seeks out the women in the reflection. One of them, a leggy blonde with a cherry birthmark on her cheek, stands adjusting her ponytail so that it’s almost on top of her head. The other is about a foot shorter, with red hair that hangs in curls that might have been pretty if they weren’t as fake as the dye she used.

She watches him in the mirror, and there’s a hint of hope there — a question in her eyes — that almost makes him give in. She’s pretty, for all the artifice of her colored hair and heavy makeup. Underneath all the mascara and crimson lipstick, her skin is creamy white, dusted with a sea of freckles.

He thinks of Livia — of how she had worn a hemp sack the first time he had seen her, and her hair had hung unwashed about her shoulders. Even then, downtrodden as she was, there had been something special about her.

Maybe if he squints, this girl might…

He shakes his head. He doesn’t know why he’s thinking of Livia now; she’s undoubtedly settled into her new role in Tullius’s bed by now. He should have forgotten about her.

‘This isn’t what we came here for,’ he says darkly.

_And what would Lee think if he could see you here?_

The question goes unsaid; he’s too tired to pick a fight.

Varius shrugs, takes another swig of Arthur’s whiskey and sets the bottle down on the bar with an apparently unintentional thud that makes the man wince. Maybe he _is_ as drunk as he looks.

The door opens with an ear-splitting screech and they look up in unison; an older man with graying hair steps in, dusting something from the shoulders of his waxed jacket. It’s snowing out.

Varius’s attention moves away from the newcomer and he strides to the billiards table, murmuring something in Rose’s ear. She rewards him with another grating giggle.

It’s obvious Varius doesn’t know the man who stepped inside from the cold, but Arthur watches in the mirror as he approaches the bar. Something about him is a little familiar — uncannily so. He’s a civilian by all appearances: too unkempt to be Brotherhood.

‘Richie!’ the man behind the bar says. He extends an arm across the bar and the man — Richie — clasps it.

‘You haven’t burned the place down yet?’ Richie replies, glancing about the bar. He has some sort of regional accent, a gentle twang that rounds itself around some words more than others. ‘Gotta say I’m a little disappointed.’

‘You wanna turn this place to rubble, be my guest,’ the barkeep says, with a wry shake of his head. ‘But _you’re_ breaking the news to Mara.’

‘You still with that hellcat?’

‘Long as she’ll have me.’

Arthur tunes out the rest of their conversation. They’re two aging men, catching up after a long absence; they have little of interest to him. He’s just considering heading for the restroom, however, when he hears talk of the Brotherhood of Steel pass between them. It’s to be expected in a city under the Brotherhood’s protection, but still his ears prick up.

‘Yeah, they come through here sometimes,’ the barkeep says. ‘Waving their holotags around like they’re hot shit. Expecting a discount like I personally owe them something.’

‘They can’t all be that bad,’ Richie replies. ‘Sure, you get the cocky ones sometimes — they think they’re invincible because they fired a shot at somebody and hit the target. Show them actual combat and they get real humble real quick.’

The barkeep chuckles; in the mirror, Arthur sees him set a bottle of something expensive down in front of his old friend.

‘You ever miss it?’ he asks.

Richie takes a while to answer, and in that time Arthur studies his reflection. He looks a little younger than he had first thought — weathered by experience, rather than years. Arthur places him perhaps in his mid-forties, older than most of the legionaries he serves with. It’s rare for them to survive past a certain age, once the years start to catch them up.

‘I guess,’ Richie says. Arthur thinks there might be nostalgia there, maybe a little sadness. ‘They offered me a place here, training recruits. Wouldn’t have been the same.’

When Richie looks up, their eyes meet in the mirror and Arthur feels a spark — an unsettling familiarity that compels him to keep eye contact even though his instincts scream at him to look away.

Richie freezes.

Hand poised midway to his mouth with a shot glass in his grasp, he narrows his eyes as he looks back at Arthur in the mirror. Then his reflection turns away, and Arthur realizes he’s looking toward him in person now: twisted at the waist where he sits on his bar stool, he stares at Arthur.

‘Maxson?’

It’s been a long time since he heard that name — hurled in his face like an insult by his captors, prised from him through years of conditioning. Before that, it was a name that used to be spoken aloud in his presence with awe: with pride.

The sound of it makes his pulse gush in his ears in a sickening beat, until he feels so nauseated he’s not sure he’ll make it to the restroom in time.

An arm slings itself around his neck; Varius anchors him, the smell of alcohol and sweat rooting him in the moment.

‘What now?’ Varius says. ‘Maxim?’ 

Richie shakes his head; barely spares a glance at Varius. 

‘Maxson. Arthur Maxson. I’m right, aren’t I?’

Arthur wants to turn and run, but he feels Varius’s arm press down into his shoulder.

 _I’ve got this,_ the touch seems to say. _Stay put._

‘You got the wrong guy,’ Varius says. He slurs his words, but Arthur knows that the adrenaline has sobered him up somewhat by now. ‘We never met any Arthur Maxwell.’

Richie looks irritated. Left alone with Varius, he’d probably knock him out. He still hasn’t looked Varius in the eye; he’s too busy staring Arthur down.

‘Max _son_ ,’ he says sharply.

Arthur can’t help but feel that Varius’s efforts are for nothing; he makes a convincing show of confusion, but that look on Richie’s face says it all. He knows he’s right.

Arthur mumbles out some excuse about the bathroom and slips free of Varius’s hold; it’s only once Richie’s glance is no longer on his own that he starts to feel like he can breathe, but it isn’t until he makes it out the back exit of the bar and into the cold night air that the nausea begins to fade.

The snow is heavier now; it crunches underfoot, mingling with the gritty sound of broken glass. He turns his face up to the sky and lets the cold feathers of snow brush against his skin.

With his eyes closed, he can hear everything all the clearer: the _flump_ of the snow hitting surfaces around him; the buzz of one street over, still bustling even though night has long since fallen. When the door opens behind him he almost doesn’t hear it, as though the motion is one perfected by years of practice.

He expects Varius to be there, but when he opens his eyes and turns around he sees Richie instead — but that isn’t right; it’s not _Richie_.

Once upon a time, Arthur called him Knight Milner.

‘I’ll be damned,’ Milner says. His cheeks are a little red. ‘Jessie’s boy made it out after all.’

Arthur shakes his head. Instinctively, he takes a step backwards.

‘I get it,’ Milner says, gentler now. Understanding. ‘You put it all behind you. Easier to let the Maxson name die with you than to take up some title you never wanted. Can’t say I blame you — time was, I wished I’d died up there on that cross.’

Arthur remembers seeing the Knight there: remembers how pale his skin had been, all the blood drained from it. He’d thought Milner was dead; been sure of it.

He keeps moving back, as though every step he takes will bring him farther from his past. His boot scuffs a rock on the way, and he sends it tumbling back through the thin coating of snow.

Milner closes the gap, and for the first time Arthur notices the man limps when he walks. He never used to, years ago, but then there’s probably no end to the injuries he still suffers as a reward for being strung up on a crucifix.

‘We were so sure the Legion dogs snatched you with the other kids,’ Milner says, and there’s a wistfulness to his voice — a mist in his eyes. ‘And here you are now, miles from home. What kinda luck is that?’

It doesn’t feel like luck to Arthur; it feels like fate catching up to him. There was a time when his fellow legionaries would mock him for his ancestry, but soon he had proven he could shed his legacy as easily as his name. He had never thought this day would come, yet now that it’s here it seems it was inevitable.

How many times has he spilled the blood of men and women who might have been his brothers and sisters, had he been allowed to walk the path set out for him? 

‘You’re mistaken,’ he says.

His voice comes out so low he isn’t sure Milner even heard him, but the man suddenly barks out a laugh that cuts through the night air and makes Arthur start.

‘Give it up, kid! I’d know those Maxson eyes anywhere. Just like your old man’s.’

They’re barely feet apart, close enough for Milner to lay a hand on his shoulder as he used to over a decade ago.

Arthur backs up once more; he collides with the wall behind him, the cold of the masonry cutting through layers of clothing. Nowhere to go.

‘You’re _mistaken_.’

Milner shakes his head in resignation. He turns away, bringing an unsteady hand up to card through his hair, and in that momentary reprieve Arthur makes his move.

He stoops; his hand finds the rock on the ground where it skittered earlier and his pulse picks up when he realizes how heavy it is, as he had hoped. 

His fingers close around it. He rises to his feet.

Milner is just turning, the start of a word tumbling from his lips as Arthur brings the rock down. He feels Milner’s temple give way under the blow and the man buckles, sagging to the side.

Arthur’s hand is shaking so badly he misses his second strike, but the third one finds its way home. Blood spatters the ground, Milner’s skin, Arthur’s face, and he can taste it — hot and coppery and sickening.

But he goes on and on, until Milner is still: a warm body in the snow.

Arthur’s chest heaves, his breathing so rugged it’s almost deafening. He forces himself to slow it down, to make each breath measured and even. With time, the thunderous drumming of his heart dies down to a steady beat.

His hand is slick with crimson. Dropping to his knees, he scrapes snow from the concrete and rubs it over his skin to wash off the worst of the blood. It barely makes a dent, but he persists; eventually he scoops up more and rubs it on his face and lets the melting snow trickle into his mouth, cleansing the taste of copper from his tongue.

His hands are numb when he finishes; his cheeks burn from the cold.

The door back into the bar is just ahead of him, an ancient, peeling sign all but illegible on its cracked surface. Through it, he knows Varius still waits, likely weighing up whether or not to return to the women at the billiards table. The barkeep is probably wondering where his friend has got to.

Arthur looks at Milner, then glances about the alleyway. There’s a dumpster in the corner, the left half of the lid rusted partway open. When he moves over and tries the other side, it gives way with little resistance.

It will only take a cursory glance of the place to find the blood on the ground, even once the snow has cleared, but he can still buy himself some time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've known this was coming for a while; I wasn't sure when Arthur's past would catch up to him, but it had to happen eventually.
> 
> Milner is mentioned all the way back in the prologue and even though we only see his name, I found myself formulating all sorts of ideas about what he was like. It's a poor end to die this way, and probably avoidable if Arthur had kept his cool, but he's been unravelling for a while now.
> 
> Blame his ambition, or Livia, or River tapping into a side of him that he hadn't known was there.
> 
> Blame Varius for bringing up the past; blame Arthur for never really letting go.


	28. Interlude — Varius

_February 2290 — Brotherhood stronghold — northern reaches of the former state of Colorado_

The contact never showed up; Varius didn’t get word until long after Arthur had made a quick exit.

‘Being watched,’ the note had said. ‘Too risky.’

That didn’t mean his night had to end, however. He still managed to have a good time, even with Arthur gone and their plans bust. Rose and Ellen turned out to be more fun than he had bargained for, and they had stumbled out of the bar well into the night.

Ellen had wanted to go back to his place; he suspected Rose might have come along too. In the end he politely brushed them off with promises of looking them up next time he was in town.

There probably wouldn’t be a next time, he had realized, as he made his solitary way to the motel. Once the mission was complete, he would have no need of infiltrating the stronghold again. It felt odd to think that the next time he walked these streets, there would be Legion banners all along them.

The thought had been sobering.

He couldn’t help but think of Lee — of the tentative relationship they had formed during their few trips together. He felt guilt grip at his stomach as it dawned on him for the first time what it might mean for his friend — for his lover — when the Legion staked their claim on the place.

He’d have to tell Lee to get out of town for a while; maybe give him a false tip about trading someplace else.

He lies in bed now, staring up at the ceiling where the glow from the street lamps plays across it, distorted by the moth-eaten shades pulled over the window. He thinks it might be sometime around four; Arthur still isn’t back.

He sighs. He knows Arthur recognized Milner, just as the former Knight had recognized him in turn. Luckily Varius had gone under the radar — he had always been a scrawny, forgettable kid back then, so he hadn’t been surprised when Milner made no show of recognizing him.

Knowing Arthur, he’s probably running through drills somewhere to take his mind off things.

Varius had wanted to talk to him about everything, after Milner had left: had wanted to come up with some sort of plan in case something like that happened again. After Arthur had let himself out, however, he had never come back.

Varius rolls onto his side, avoiding a sharp spring in the mattress as he goes.

Arthur’s bed is a few feet away, some of his belongings discarded on its surface. Typical Arthur: even things haphazardly left out of place are almost neat in their disarray, ready to be packed up anew at a moment’s notice.

He chews his lip, glancing toward the door in case it should chance to open. Predictably, it doesn’t.

It’s not that he’s worried about Arthur — of the two of them, he has always been the one watching out for Varius — but he can’t help feeling uneasy. Milner’s presence had thrown them both off, even if it had taken Varius a little longer to realize who he was. It hadn’t been until after the guy had left, when he was letting Rose hustle him out of a fistful of caps, that it had dawned on him where he had known the man’s face from.

It made it all the more important that they complete their task swiftly, that much was certain.

He tries to come up with a new plan of action, only to drift off mid-thought.

* * *

The sound of the door closing wakes him. He remains as still as he can, one eye open, and watches the dark figure move about the room.

It’s Arthur; his hair and shoulders are still scattered with snow, and he moves erratically. Varius watches him stride over to his own bed, then back toward the exit, then across to the bathroom on Varius’s side of the room. It’s at the open doorway that he stops, lingering for a long while with his arm up against the frame.

‘Regulus?’

Varius sits up, his movements slow and cautious. He can tell that Arthur is on edge even from here.

Arthur doesn’t respond. He stays there at the threshold out of the room and Varius hears his breathing, heavier than usual.

He knows better than to ask if Arthur is okay.

Instead: ‘Did you find what you were looking for?’

Arthur’s breathing stills. Slowly, so painstakingly that the floorboards protest beneath him, he turns toward Varius. Half his face is lit up in the yellow glow from outside; the other half is cloaked in darkness.

He still isn’t talking. Varius’s pulse picks up.

‘Regul—’

‘Shut up.’

Arthur’s voice is hoarse, either from anger or exhaustion.

Varius waits. 

Arthur pushes away from the doorway. It looks like he’s headed for his bed, but he lingers at the foot of Varius’s, fists clenched at his side. He stands there for a long while, his breathing picking up again while Varius stills his own, poised to move.

He silently wills Arthur to turn, to walk away, but when the man moves again it’s to step slowly closer.

Varius looks up at him, expecting to see anger etched into Arthur’s face; instead there’s something forlorn there that’s more disquieting than rage ever could have been.

‘Regulus?’

This time, Arthur doesn’t silence him.

He reaches out instead, gripping Varius’s wrist where his hand steadies himself on the bed. Arthur’s fingers are cold — painfully so — but Varius doesn’t flinch away.

‘The contact never showed up,’ he finds himself saying.

He wonders even as the words leave his mouth why he’s choosing this moment to say them.

Arthur ignores him. He tugs at Varius’s wrist, then lets go, and Varius feels his stomach flip with anticipation.

He realizes, belatedly, that Arthur wants him to stand; he clambers out of the bed, his feet shying from the chill of the old floorboards, and stands uncertainly in front of the other man.

Arthur shrugs off his jacket, letting it fall heavily to the floor. He steps out of his boots next, the laces so frayed he doesn’t have to untie them.

Varius finds himself staring down at the discarded clothing on the floor when Arthur’s hands press against his shoulders, pushing him back towards the wall. He hits it with a thud that makes his skull jolt but Arthur doesn’t give him a chance to recover; Arthur’s mouth finds his, and instead of being cold like his hands it’s warm — so warm Varius shudders in pleasure.

There’s yelling somewhere outside: a couple drunkenly arguing, then the sound of shattering glass. By the time the world falls into silence once more, Arthur has his hands at Varius’s hips, pulling them into his own.

The last time they were this close, they were huddled together for warmth under a stinking brahmin skin blanket. Arthur had held him tight then, only to slink away in the cold light of morning.

That night had been about survival; something about this feels the same. Urgent. _Desperate._

Arthur’s hands are warmer now when they find their way under Varius’s shirt. Calloused fingertips find their home at the jut of Varius’s hips, gripping possessively.

Varius moves to relieve Arthur of his shirt but Arthur grabs his wrists, pinning them to the wall over his head in one heavy, unyielding hand. The other hand finds its way down between Varius’s legs and he can’t help but moan in response, until Arthur silences him with another rough kiss.

Arthur’s lips soon skirt Varius’s jawline; he leaves heated kisses down the expanse of his neck. A savage bite at Varius’s shoulder has his vision blurring in pain, but the sensation soon melts into pleasure.

This isn’t what Varius has with Lee: the kisses stolen at every spare moment, the hours between the sheets, filled with laughter as much as they are with suggestive murmurs.

This isn’t what Arthur had with Livia either: his hand on her bare, creamy thigh beneath the table when they thought Varius wasn’t looking, the sharp little cries of ecstacy that woke him from his sleep when he drifted off on the rug in Arthur’s tent after drinking too much.

When Arthur pushes him down on the bed, Varius has no illusions about what this is. Yet he gives himself up nonetheless: to his comrade, to his ally, to the only friend he had as a child.

When he first kissed Arthur, many months earlier, it had been fueled by a plundered bottle of whiskey after their successful raid on the NCR. They were drinking hours ago, but this time he knows they’re both sober, if a little rough around the edges.

Back then — back when he had misread the situation and ruined everything — he had thought he had seen something, between the flashes of anger. It had seemed like uncertainty; it had seemed like desire.

He doesn’t know what this means to Arthur — he suspects it means nothing at all.

Still, it’s enough.


	29. XIX

_February 2290 — Brotherhood stronghold — northern reaches of the former state of Colorado_

A shaft of sunlight falls on the bed, over Varius’s sleeping form. He hasn’t stirred all morning, not since Arthur woke up in a cold sweat; for the better part of an hour now Arthur has sat at the edge of the mattress listening to the slow, easy rhythm of his breathing.

Varius lies on his front, his arms nestled underneath his pillow. Arthur allows himself a moment to watch the way the sun plays across his skin, covered in a fine network of freckles from years of toiling outdoors.

Arthur remembers when Varius had been so small, so slight, that it had seemed he wouldn’t make it through one winter under the Legion’s brutal training. He had been knocked down over and over — by the slave master, by their fellow recruits — and yet stubbornness had driven him to rise again each time.

They’ll make their move today — there’s no time left to lose. He might have doubted Varius once; he has no choice now but to trust in him.

Around noon, he lays a hand on Varius’s shoulder: trails it first over the bruise he left there hours before, then follows the curve of his spine until it sits in the small of his back. When Varius stirs, he pulls away.

Varius lifts his head and looks at him wordlessly; for the moment that their glances linger on each other, Arthur feels torn between filling the space beside him in the bed, and snarling at him for sleeping so late.

He does neither. Clearing his throat, he gets to his feet and moves to gather up his belongings.

They dress in silence, chewing ginseng root all the while. It’s the closest thing the Legion has to a hit of Psycho.

‘We make our move at dusk,’ he says, with a glance toward the mirror. His eyes are ringed with purple. ‘We can’t afford to wait any longer.’

Varius nods without looking up. He hasn’t mentioned Milner.

An image flashes into Arthur’s mind: a body on the ground, impossibly still. Arthur has never shied from killing, but somehow seeing his former mentor like that was different. He realizes he’s starting to dwell on it again — starting to let it get the better of him. He clears his throat gruffly; turns away from the mirror and picks up his laser pistol from his bed, checking it over as though he hasn’t already a dozen times.

When he glances up again, Varius is watching him. 

‘You should take care of any unfinished business you have here,’ Arthur says. ‘We won’t be back after tonight.’

Varius nods again. He doesn’t seem surprised; this isn’t news to him.

They pack everything with them: their supplies go in smaller packs, branded with Brotherhood logos, while the rest of their belongings go into other packs that they’ll stow elsewhere, near the outskirts of town. 

They won’t move out until dusk; in the meantime, they train together — no sparring, given the lack of space, but they each benefit from the discipline of a sequence of drills, readying their bodies for whatever might await them.

After they eat in the motel’s common room, Arthur goes to settle up accounts with the owner of the motel, but along the way Varius stops him.

‘I need to go do something,’ he says.

Another setback; Arthur’s temple throbs, but he swallows down his irritation. He could have woken Varius sooner; might have, if he hadn’t been afraid to break the stillness.

‘Thirty minutes,’ Arthur says. ‘No more. We meet under the sign by the gateway to the stronghold.’

Varius doesn’t say where he’s going; Arthur doesn’t ask. He suspects it has something to do with Lee.

The winter sun is blindingly bright even as it slips beneath the horizon. The streets have a hazy quality to them as he makes his way toward the edge of town; he realizes, blearily, that he has a hangover. The aftertaste of the salt-laden, heavy meal he ate brings on a wave of nausea and he fights it back, focussing on the sound of his own footsteps on the sidewalk.

He leaves his belongings in the designated spot and changes into the borrowed flight suit. With a quick check to ensure that he still isn’t being followed, he makes his way towards the stronghold.

Varius is late making the rendezvous. He marches up to the spot, arms swinging as he goes. He looks sullen.

‘You’re late,’ Arthur snaps.

Varius barely looks him in the eye.

‘I’m here now,’ he says. ‘There was a note at the front desk. The contact. He left a dead drop for us.’

It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing.

This time, as they approach the entrance to the Brotherhood base, Arthur feels the gaze of the soldiers on patrol a little too keenly. He knows there are cuts on his hand, a souvenir from the alleyway that he only noticed hours after the fact, but at least those can be explained away with ease.

He feels like there’s still blood spattered across his face, plain as day.

Once they’re through the gate, he eyes the street that will take them directly to the plaza. That isn’t their destination for the moment, yet he feels the pull of it: knows where it is as the crow flies, and imagines the sight of the vertibirds all lined up ready for service.

He thinks of Varius’s contact, and of how his intel had been lacking; he thinks of the rendezvous the contact never made, and the chance meeting with Milner. Even earlier than that, the dust storm in Taborville still lingers in his thoughts.

It all seems like too much misfortune in one run to be coincidence, yet there’s a lateral side to him — the part that helped earn his stripes as decanus — that shrugs the idea off. If there were some conspiracy to make their operation fail, they would have been caught by now: captured and interrogated.

He thinks of the legionaries who worship superstition almost as fervently as they do Caesar, who believe that Mars guides their blades until the moment he deems them no longer worthy. There are women, too — young and old — who craft amulets from feathers, twigs and colorful stones to ward off some shapeless, nameless evil.

He doesn’t know what he might have done to lose favor with his god.

All the while, as Varius leads him to the drop, Arthur can’t help wondering if they’re walking into a trap.

‘Go right here,’ Varius says sharply.

It catches Arthur off guard, but he does as instructed; they round a corner and keep up their pace, walking with feigned purpose until Varius’s pace slows a little. A cautious glance back, toward the path they didn’t take, shows him a handful of officers with whom they would have crossed paths had they continued.

‘It feels different today,’ Varius says. Silently, Arthur agrees.

Their path takes them on a circuitous route to a building that serves as the armory. It’s guarded outside — a soldier in power armor, and two others in standard issue uniforms — and Arthur doubts the papers Varius’s contact had forged for them will get them through the door.

Varius keeps going, and Arthur follows alongside him as coolly as he can.

They round the building; as they go, Arthur spies his companion glancing around the side of it, eyeing up the reinforced windows. Eventually they reach a set of stairs recessed into the ground, leading to the basement. Predictably, the door is locked.

Arthur opens his mouth to protest, but Varius merely hands his pack over and drops to one knee, fishing around in the pocket of his jacket until he withdraws a small case. Peering over his shoulder, Arthur watches him open it to reveal a set of picks.

Varius seems in no rush; calmly, he works at the lock, chewing his lip in concentration as he goes.

It feels like every second is one too many; Arthur wills himself not to hold his breath as he glances up at street level, imagining the sound of footfalls coming their way.

‘That’s really distracting,’ Varius says.

Arthur isn’t sure what he means until it occurs to him that he’s pacing. Abruptly, he stops.

The moment the lock opens is almost anticlimactic: a little click, then the squeak of Varius turning the handle. Varius opens it just slightly and presses his face to the gap, peering inside. After a pause he pushes himself to his feet and tidies his things away.

‘Learned that in a bar,’ he says, dusting off the knees of his uniform. ‘Sometimes the Legion’s training will only get you so far.’

Arthur sighs, thrusting Varius’s pack into his hands once more.

With the door closed behind them, the darkness is profound; Arthur hears Varius fumble around for a moment, then comes the _ping_ of the fluorescents kicking in. They take a little too long to warm up, some of them failing to come on altogether, but there’s enough light to see by. The hallway appears disused, filled with packing crates coated in thick, greasy dust.

There are doors along the way, each with a frosted glass window printed with peeling letters. The first few rooms are language laboratories; the last on the end belonged to ‘Professor D. Bennet’ once upon a time.

Beside the professor’s door is a cabinet with a noticeboard inside, many of the posters and notices still preserved within. The most prominent of the posters, a brightly colored picture of the world, announces an impending student exchange program. From the date at the bottom, it seems it never came about before the bombs dropped.

There’s a layer of dust over the glass; at the edge of it there’s a clean patch in the shape of a handprint.

He glances at Varius, who responds with a shrug.

‘The message said we’d know it when we see it.’

Varius edges the glass open, enough to slip his hand into the corner. He withdraws a key with the name ‘D. Bennet’ engraved on the attached metal token.

‘Anything else?’ Arthur asks.

Varius feels around inside the case awhile, carefully checking the edges of it. Eventually he pulls away with a stern shake of his head.

Varius unlocks the door to the side of the case, checking carefully around the frame for traps before opening it. Once the fluorescents within the room come to life, they see that it’s been mostly undisturbed over the past two centuries — however a new addition sits on the desk, in the form of a duffel bag.

Inside there are explosives: C-4, and the required blasting caps. Arthur sees Varius’s eyes light up.

There’s a slip of paper in the bag at the bottom; on it, there’s a hastily-sketched map. It takes them a moment to piece together that it depicts the plaza, along with the makeshift hangar that the Brotherhood have built nearby.

One word catches Arthur’s attention: ‘FUEL’, daubed in heavy letters, with an X to denote its position.

He looks up and meets the other man’s eye. For the first time that day, Varius smiles.


	30. XX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Frick! Only realised after I hit publish that I never gave credit where it's due to the borrowed characters. Blame exhaustion.
> 
> Mitch belongs to [Buggirl](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Buggirl/works); Kent and Wade belong to [Gaqalesqua](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gaqalesqua/pseuds/Gaqalesqua/works). Eternal thanks for letting me borrow your babies; I thought it'd add a little flavour to have some named soldiers in there.
> 
> There might also be a tiny cameo in there, if you squint...
> 
> Double frick! I also forgot to mention that Buggirl was awesome enough to make a cover for this here humble fic! [Go check it out!](http://bugsieplusone.tumblr.com/post/157416470437/gift-for-princetybalt-for-their-fonvfo4)

_February 2290 — Brotherhood stronghold — northern reaches of the former state of Colorado_

Varius is twitchy; he keeps re-hefting the duffel bag onto his shoulder, as if the contents might somehow have spilled out in the intervening moments since he last did so. Arthur tries not to let it rub off on him, but exhaustion and nerves over the night before have left him on edge as it is.

They make a few loops of the area surrounding the hangar; while there is the expected Brotherhood presence, nobody seems to be checking anyone’s identification as they move in and out of the structure. There are the main hangar doors — left open, for ease of use — and two side entrances. From time to time, a vertibird is wheeled in by way of the streets to undergo a slew of standard repairs, or to refuel.

‘The vertibirds are of greater strategic value,’ Arthur says, forcing himself not to glance around and attract undue attention. ‘We sabotage them first.’

That in itself will prove to be quite the feat: the vertibirds themselves, while not strictly under guard, are seldom left unattended — whether they’re being tuned up, tinkered with or reverently cleaned and polished.

They stand near the edge of the plaza watching the soldiers go about their business. Varius lights up a cigarette and taps out a rhythm with his foot while he watches.

There are occasional windows — brief moments of inattention from the Brotherhood. Arthur knows that planning will only get them so far; they’ll need to be quick, and efficient.

‘I’ll take the ones to the north,’ Arthur says, pointing with his chin. ‘Meet at the hangar when you’re done.’

Varius nods, taking a long drag from his cigarette. He takes his time in exhaling; a plume of smoke catches the light of a nearby streetlamp.

‘Understood. Ave.’

They’ve gone through the particulars of it ad nauseum: the explosives are fitted with timers, which they’ll have a narrow window to set. Too long and they risk the devices being spotted during routine inspections; too short and the bombs will go off before they’re ready.

They settle on fifteen minutes — they start the timers before they part ways, and Arthur walks briskly towards his targets so he doesn’t lose important time.

His pack seems to weigh especially heavily with the added burden of a deadline. Even the slightest of delays might mean the difference between success and failure; every second is precious. 

The first vertibird is simple: he moves to the side cast in shadow and stoops low underneath it, feeling around for the landing wheels. His hand finds the well recessed into the undercarriage, just beneath where the fuel tank must be. He attaches the explosive to the inside of it, checks around to make sure that he hasn’t been seen, and slips away.

The next one is trickier; he goes for the one closest to the first, but as he nears he spots a technician working on something on a panel inside the craft. His eyes flit to the other vertibirds — before he can make a move, he hears footsteps crunching through the dirt nearby.

‘It’s nothing big. Just a couple of the guys, maybe a show. Liz made me promise I wouldn’t go overboard.’

There’s a laugh: too close for comfort. Arthur ducks just beneath the open door on the side of the vertibird, keeping his head low.

He shrinks into the shadows as best he can, waiting until he sees two sets of legs just beyond the tail end of the craft. They’re headed off in the direction of the hangar; the soldiers don’t so much as spare a glance in his direction.

He sidles a little to the left and drops to his knees, leaning in underneath the vertibird. Once the device is placed, he brushes the oil residue from his hands and moves on.

Varius finishes before him; Arthur spots his lanky silhouette striding across the plaza with haste. When Arthur eventually catches up to him, he sees that the other man’s face is pale, his eyes wide with adrenaline.

‘Six minutes,’ Varius hisses as they fall into step with one another.

Nobody stops them as they step through the main doors into the hangar; they aren’t the only ones moving freely about.

Arthur can see the fuel tank towering over the hangar where it sits on a frame in a far corner. Huge hoses feed out from the belly it, coiled loosely on the floor.

‘Hey!’

Dread washes over him. This is it: they’ve been made. When he turns however, hand ready at the holster on his hip, he sees a mechanic in an oil-stained jumpsuit waving frantically with one hand. Under her other arm she holds one of the hoses, supporting its bulk against her as though it weighs nothing at all. On the chest of her jumpsuit, barely legible beneath all the oil, is the name _Tess_.

‘Out of the way, jackass!’ she says, with little intention of stopping her march to wait for him.

He realizes then that Varius has gone from his side, already moving out of harm’s way; at the corner of his vision he sees a vertibird being taxied in, ready for refueling. He barely makes it out of the way before the mechanic storms past.

His face is treacherously hot when he regroups with Varius; he can see a smirk threatening to erupt on the other’s lips. With a warning glance from Arthur, the smirk is gone.

Five minutes. Arthur feels his heart drum a frenetic beat against his ribs.

There’s a foldout table blocking the path to the tank; a handful of soldiers sit around it, likely shirking guard duty to indulge in their card game. A heap of caps sits in the middle of the table, all piled in haphazardly.

‘Hurry up, Mitch,’ one of the soldiers says, throwing his head back with a dramatic sigh. ‘I’m going gray here.’

Arthur feels a gentle tug at his elbow; he glances up, and Varius gives a pointed look in the direction of the tank. When Arthur nods in understanding, Varius takes off at a leisurely pace towards the group.

‘This what passes for guard duty?’ Varius says, a little too loud. ‘Some Legion dog could stroll through in full regalia and you’d never notice ‘til he hit you.’

Arthur sees Varius clap his hand down on one of the soldiers’ shoulders: watches the man try to shrug him off. Whatever Varius is getting at, it seems to be working — all eyes are on him.

Arthur’s legs propel him forward. He slips around the far side of the group while they stare at his companion. 

‘Can we help you?’ a woman says. She had been carding her hand through her short red hair when Varius made his appearance; she lets her arm drop now, her blue eyes narrowing.

Arthur can hear the mistrust in her voice; Varius is playing a risky game. He won’t squander the opportunity.

Varius’s voice drifts over, uncharacteristically grating: ‘Brass know you’re gambling on Brotherhood time?’

A low scraping sound; one of the soldiers pushes his chair back and rises to his feet.

‘I don’t think I recognize you,’ he says. ‘What’s your rank and designation?’

As Arthur pulls himself up the bars supporting the fuel tank, he glances around through the bars: Varius stands peering over the shoulder of the redhead to get a look at the cards in her hand. He pays no heed to the question.

‘Uh… Wade, is it?’ he says hesitantly, twisting his head to read the name on her uniform. ‘I’d fold, if I were you.’

‘Rank and designation, _soldier_.’

Arthur puts the exchange out of his mind; there’s barely any time left. He reaches the top of the frame and digs around in the depths of his pack for the last of the explosives.

‘Aw c’mon... Kent,’ Varius says, halting as he reads the name on the soldier’s uniform. ‘I wait until at least the third date before I give _that_ out to just anybody.’

Arthur spies a little under three minutes on the egg timer attached to the front of the first explosive. His fingers are slick with sweat as he lifts it into place.

‘That’s _Paladin_ Kent,’ he hears. The device slips from his grasp as he catches the soldier’s next words: ‘And I won’t ask you again.’

The makeshift bomb clatters to the ground with an ear-shattering sound that defies the flimsy plastic and metal parts that make up its construction. The noise resonates through their corner of the hangar, but by then Arthur’s already affixing another explosive in place in its stead. 

‘The fuck was that?’ a voice says nearby, as he finds the last device and attaches it.

Arthur almost slips from his perch in his haste to climb down; his heart in his throat, he clings to the bars and carefully finds his footing again. He can visualize the timer ticking as he makes his way back to the ground: barely over a minute left. He sets his feet down a little too hard on the concrete and the impact jolts through his legs.

He doesn’t know enough about explosives to estimate the blast radius; he just knows he has to get far away. His lungs burn as he strides toward the side door of the hangar, ignoring the voices of the soldiers calling out to him.

A boom sounds out: too close, _dangerously_ close. Arthur feels a wall of air strikes him, hard, knocking the breath out of his lungs. He crumples under the force of it, barely staying on his feet.

A body hits the ground in front of him — he sees a scrap of a colorful mechanic’s jumpsuit, smells burning hair and flesh. He wonders if she’s the mechanic from earlier, the one who nearly knocked him over in a hurry.

The silence that follows is profound, unnatural. It takes too long to realize he’s been deafened by the explosion, but by then he’s recovered enough to keep moving: away from the hail of flames and shrapnel, away from the cacophony of voices barking out commands and profanity in equal measure.

Their timing was off: the seconds seem to stretch out impossibly long after the first detonation as he anticipates the rest. He wonders with a sickening lurch if they did something wrong — if the timers failed, or if they assembled the explosives incorrectly — but as he shoulders the exit door open he hears the next explosion, dulled in his damaged, ringing ears, followed by many more in rapid succession.

The fuel tank goes off last of all, though not without flourish: the shockwave tears a hole through the makeshift roof, sending lethal shards of metal flying into the night sky.

There’s no need to be covert now: no need for stealth. Arthur takes off at a sprint.

In the confusion following the carnage, it doesn’t seem as though he was followed. Still, he glances feverishly at the face of each soldier who runs past him, as though they can smell the guilt on him.

The rest of the city seems unfazed by the chaos as he breaks free of the Brotherhood base: perhaps word has yet to reach them. He reaches the rendezvous at the edge of town and slips through the door. Quickly, he sheds his flight suit, combing the pompadour out of his hair as he goes.

Arthur paces while he waits. Slowly, inevitably, sounds of panic pick up in the city around him as the news spreads.

He waits, counting out the minutes. Still no sign of Varius.

In the distance a raid siren rings out, a melancholy song echoing through the streets.


	31. Interlude — The Ox

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An Arthur/Livia origin fic is currently in-progress [over here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10480641/chapters/23123238). It can be read at any point; it doesn't spoil anything from the main plot.
> 
> Also gonna go ahead and take this as another opportunity to pimp out [this amazing cover](http://bugsieplusone.tumblr.com/post/157416470437/gift-for-princetybalt-for-their-fonvfo4) created by [Buggirl](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Buggirl/works)!

_February 2290 — Legion encampment — somewhere in the former state of Colorado_

There’s no word as yet of the success of the mission to infiltrate the Brotherhood; there’s an atmosphere of trepidation amongst both the Legion and the tribals.

The leaders from both groups share a meal in anticipation of the news; River, Black, and his interpreter sit at one side of the great table overburdened with food and wine, and Tullius sits on the other with Plenus in a place of honor to his right.

The Ox kneels at River’s side, ignoring the cramping sensation in his thighs and calves. River instructed him to be in attendance — to watch, to listen — and he has spent the better part of the past hour silently observing.

From time to time he sees Tullius’s girl, Livia, scurry in and attend to some whim on the part of the legionaries; whenever she stoops to murmur in Tullius’s ear, her long red hair cascades down in front of her, concealing her face.

The Ox knows there’s a fresh bruise there, swelling at her lip. She does a poor job of hiding it, even as she swiftly rises and leaves.

To Black’s right, beside his interpreter, Kayla sits in similar diligence. He can see her attention waning, however — can tell that she would rather be training than sitting in on diplomacy. As she distractedly uses the edge of her blade to dig a rut into the dirt at her feet, he wants to tell her she’ll need to learn patience if she ever wishes to follow in her leaders’ footsteps.

‘We make our move when our men return,’ Tullius says. Even at a meal intended for recreation, he never seems to stop strategizing. ‘We’ll get word soon enough of their success.’

Black murmurs something, low and gruff, for the ears of River alone. The Ox takes it for the tribals’ native tongue, but he picks out English instead: ‘ _If_ they return.’

River seems unperturbed; she responds without missing a beat, as though translating her brother’s words.

‘Our warriors are eager to fight alongside yours at last.’

After a lull, Livia returns with a tray in her hands; there’s a bottle on it, some well-aged vintage of wine, along with cups.

The Ox can’t help but watch as she sets out the cups on the table, serving the tribals first as a sign of respect from the Legion. He wonders if she knows how her hips sway when she walks; if it’s intentional. She has certainly caught Black’s eye — his gaze follows her every move as she sets his cup down in front of him.

Livia has to move around the Ox to get to River; he realizes for the first time that her breathing is shallow. Her hands tremble just slightly, and when she moves to fill River’s cup she lets it overflow as though distracted.

The wine pools on the table; River jumps to her feet before the liquid can spill into her lap. The tray almost tumbles from her grasp, but River catches it, barely saving the two remaining cups balancing precariously atop it.

‘Your girl should pay more attention, Centurion,’ River says briskly. She gives Livia a pointed look, taking the tray from her grasp.

The Ox sees anger and shame in equal amount in Livia’s face as she drops to her knees to blot at the liquid with a cloth from her pocket. Her hands tremble all the worse now as she mops up the spill; when Ox catches a flash of her face as she moves, he sees her skin has taken on a sickly pallor.

‘She will be punished,’ Tullius says. He speaks calmly, but his anger is evident in the red of his face.

‘She seems unfit for her duties today,’ River says, idly. She sets the tray aside, righting the cups on its surface. Her tone is indifferent; to the Ox, it’s as though they speak of an animal rather than a woman. ‘Perhaps you should send for another?’

Rage burns in Livia’s eyes, clear for the Ox to see; he watches the cloth slip from her grasp, sees her raise her hand as though to strike River, but before she can he grips her by the wrist.

_Don’t make this worse._

He would say it aloud if he could — would warn her that he doesn’t need to see the bruising of her lip to know she’s already on thin ice. In lieu of words, he digs his fingers into her flesh and gives her a meaningful glance. He doesn’t let go until she lowers her head slightly, her face hidden away once more behind a curtain of silky red hair.

‘Livia,’ Tullius snaps. ‘Odetta will replace you. Return to my quarters.’

Livia bows low, the picture of obedience.

It isn’t long before another girl arrives to replace Livia; she finishes serving the wine without spilling so much as a drop, and diligently blots at the stain on the table.

‘We should toast,’ River says. ‘To the success of your men’s mission.’

The four of them raise their glasses, tribals and legionaries alike.

‘In hoc signo taurus vinces,’ Tullius says, before downing his glass.

River sips her wine a little more delicately; once she has swallowed her first mouthful she eyes the centurion uncertainly.

‘Forgive me,’ she says. ‘My knowledge of languages doesn’t extend quite so far as the tongue of the esteemed Caesar.’

Plenus grins, a flash of yellowing teeth.

‘Under the sign of the bull you will conquer.’

It seems an ominous choice of words. The Ox casts a glance toward the tribals but they seem unperturbed; perhaps he’s reading too much into it.

They talk idly awhile. Tullius describes Caesar’s seat of power at Flagstaff: his voice is reverent as he speaks of the salvaged city and the austere beauty of it, unlike anything the so-called profligates have to offer. River — and Black through her — speaks of the places they have seen on their travels.

River has a way with words; even the Ox finds himself transported as she talks of the dusty plains, of the old, crumbling roads.

Tullius interrupts River’s reverie with a gruff noise — at first the Ox thinks it to be a laugh, but when his eyes alight on the centurion, he sees the man’s face is devoid of humor. Enough of a silence passes that River continues.

‘I have heard that the Legion’s territories stretch far into the west,’ she says. ‘What once belonged to the Republic is yours now.’

‘Not entirely,’ Tullius says. He gives a sharp little cough; pauses, and picks up his wine to take a sip. ‘Much of their land was ceded to us after their defeat at Hoover Dam, however they still maintain their capital.’

There’s a slight movement, subtle and well-rehearsed, as Livia’s replacement moves to refill Tullius’s cup. She resumes sitting at his side, her head bowed. She’s discreet — unnoticeable in ways that Livia could never claim to be.

‘Oh?’

The surprise in River’s voice draws the Ox’s attention back to her.

‘They do?’ she says. ‘I suppose it’s Caesar’s intention to remedy that fact, someday.’

Plenus chimes in, in his centurion’s stead. There’s another flash of teeth, and a slight tip of his cup in River’s direction.

‘The Legion’s borders are always expanding,’ he says. ‘Those who fail to kneel are crushed instead.’

The back of the Ox’s neck prickles. He feels the hair there stand on end in response to Plenus’s words.

River raises her cup by way of reply, taking a long, deep draught from it. At her side the Ox thinks he feels her tense; her face betrays nothing of her unease.


End file.
